The Domination: Judgement Day
by Mister Abbadon
Summary: In the Late 80s brilliant American scientist Emilio Sanchez begins to construct the perfect defensive system in order to protect the Alliance for Democracy against the Draka, Skynet.
1. Chapter 1

The Terminator franchise is the property of Paramount Pictures, The Draka are the Property of S. M. Stirling. At least I think, either way both are not mine.

Everyone Knows Terminator, So I won't explain that too much, there will be a few characters from the original but quite a few outsiders as well.

The Draka are the Creation of S. M. Stirling, and are seriously not nice guys. If you don't know about them I'd recommend reading the wikipedia page on them before reading this

The Draka are the worst sort of Evil Empire in the sense that they have A. no redeeming qualities and B. Always seem to come out on top. So what happens when you are being chased by a big fish? Well, a bigger fish comes along...

(...)

 _Two billion lives ended on November 4th 1998. On that day, The day the survivors would call Judgment day, the Final War Began. We thought it would be the triumph for the Final Society. Instead of ruling the world the Race was plunged into a new kind of war. The war against the Machines._  
 _-_ Gweldolyn Ingolfsson

September 28th 1990

"Project Prizefighter is, to put it simply, a deadman's switch armed with nuclear weapons." Emilio Sanchez motioned towards the presentation playing for the generals and scientists in the room and the picture changed from an image of him and the other people at Cyberdyne Labs working to missiles and various military hardware.

"At the present state of development Cyberdyne Labs will have it complete and ready to be implemented in less than a year. Once it is finished even if all of the Alliance's civilian and military leadership was killed or otherwise immobilized by the snakes, it could still hit them with everything in our nuclear stockpile." Emilio noticed that the general with Bright blue eyes and was checking his watch. He needed to get their attention back.

"However, with four to five more years of work we could expand it from just reacting to an attack and firing all our nukes until half the world is flat to something much more fine tuned. We could make it a truly global system of defense." He motioned again and this time an image of the planned robotic hardware showed up on screen, including the crude mechanical infantryman. This made the blue eyed general shift uncomfortably.

"We call it Skynet." as he said this he motioned and the word "Skynet" appeared on the screen in silver block capital letters. "It would be able to manage everything from fleets of aircraft to small teams of infantry. It wouldn't just be able to kill our enemies, it would be able to win the war for us. With Skynet on our side we may even be victorious without even firing a shot. Now if there are any questions I will do my best to answer them now."

Several hands went up, including the blue eyed general. Emilio elected to answer him first. "Yes, you in the middle. General..."

"General Cameron, Mr. Sanchez. I must say I am not wholly cavalier about removing the human element out of warfare. What if It became compromised after we put it in control? Or maybe this 'Skynet' would just decide that it didn't want to take orders anymore?"

"Well that is an excellent question General Cameron. First off Skyent's mainframe would be totally hack-proof just like our other computer systems. and Skynet would not be truly self-aware, so it wouldn't be able to decide it didn't want to do anything. As for removing the human element from war, we live in dangerous times. Drastic measures are needed."

"Very well." the General said, clearly not getting the answer he wanted.

Emilio pointed to another General with his hand raised. "Yes, you. What can I answer?"

"Thank you Mr. Sanchez, I just want to know where exactly did all this development come from in such a short time? Just a eight years ago you said the Tech was 20 years away at best."

"A lot of hard work and breakthroughs." He said with a smile, while in the back of his head he said "and a pile of scraps found in an LA factory."

 _We didn't question where it came from to be honest. It was like a gift from god. It had American tags and numbers and Identification. Maybe people in the future sent it to us to help us Defeat the Snakes. Maybe it had some malicious purpose. It wasn't like we just hooked up the thing's central processor to our Nuclear defense system. It just gave us ideas._  
-Emilio Sanchez

 _Excerpt from Los Angeles Police Department surveillance footage. Dated October 26th 1984_

(Video shows four people, two police officers, Lieutenant Winston and Sergeant Mariano as well as one Police psychiatrist, Dr. Silberman, and One suspect, Kyle Reese)

(Dr. Silberman offers Reese a Cigarette, Reese Refuses)

Silberman: So, you're a Soldier? Fighting for whom?"

Reese: With the American Patriots movement, under Dewey, from 21 to 27.

Silberman: That's the year 2027?

Reese: That's right, and for the last two years I was assigned as security and recon for John Connor.

Silberman: and who is the enemy again?

Reese: Skynet. An AI defense system built by Cyberdyne systems.

Silberman: Not the Snakes? (Silberman Glances at Winston and Mariano and raises an eyebrow)

Reese: No, not primarily.

Silberman: Why is that?

Reese: Skynet smashed their military apparatus to paste. They didn't pose a serious threat to us anymore.

Silberman: I see, and this AI wants to solidify its hold over the Alliance by killing John Connor the leader of this "American Patriots movement", in fact before he is even conceived, as a kind of retroactive abortion. (Silberman glances at Winston and Mariano and nods with a slight smile)

Reese: Yes.

Silberman: Why doesn't this Skynet just kill Connor then? In the future? why this elaborate scheme involving time travel and the, uh, Terminator?

Reese: Connor has people who would take his place in my time. killing him then would make no difference. By Killing him now it stands to gain more.

Silberman: And that's when you broke into this lab complex with this, uh, time displacement equipment?

Reese: That's right. The Terminator had already gone through and Connor sent me to intercept.

Silberman: Well how are you supposed to go back?

Reese: I can't.

(Winston and Mariano exit)

Silberman: Why didn't you bring any weapons or equipment, something more advanced. Aren't plasma weapons common in your time? Show me a piece of futuristic tech.

Reese: Nothing inorganic can go in, something about the field generated by a living organism. Nothing non-living will go.

Silberman: Why?

Reese: I DIDN'T BUILD THE F****** THING

Silberman: Okay, Okay. This cyborg its a metal...

Reese: Surrounded by living tissue.

Silberman: of course of course, so why didn't the Terminator go right to her?

Reese: When Skynet took control it didn't have access to most official documents. No full name, no address, just the city she lived in.

Silberman: Alright, alright. So you claim you were born with Skynet in charge of the bunker you lived in, why didn't it...

Reese: Look, you've heard enough. I need to...

(Useable footage ends, Official records indicate that an unknown assailant attacked the station and Killed a large number of officers. Kyle Reese was Killed two days later by an explosion of his own making. Sarah Connor's whereabouts are not known at this time.)

Comments and Criticism Are welcome


	2. Chapter 2

_We have at our disposal a weapon that cannot be intimidated or bribed or bargained with. It cannot be fought with any of the Snakes biological terrors nor can it be convinced to sacrifice its principles for a greater good. It will show no mercy and no fear. We have at our disposal a sword and shield that will make the world safe for democracy._  
 _-President Carmen Hiero_

 _Archona, January 1992_  
"Well Archon, We know about the Stone Dogs" said Carmen Hiero in a firm and matter of fact way with a slight smile on her face.

"And we know about Skynet." Shrakenberg replied, and ended the conversation.

Eric Von Shrakenberg felt confused and frustrated for the first time in a long time. The past four years of the covert struggle were not going as well as they had all expected. Up till then it had been wonderful. India had been the beginning of a long line of victories for the Race. But he knew something had changed.

To the Militarists nothing had changed. The Yankees now had some kind of secret piece of technology but it would make no difference they claimed. These new drones they were fielding just proved they were cowards. The Prize fighter system they lauded as a weapon of total protection would change nothing.

But for the pragmatists it felt as though they were on the razors edge of annihilation. First all their intel on the Comp Plauge project became worthless overnight when the Alliance Brass decided to fund something called Project Prizefighter. Then for the longest time they were utterly unable to get anything on said project other than a few scraps. And of course the ultimate humiliation had been that the T-600 infantry drone could match a Drakensis for strength. Of course it had other drawbacks where the Drakensis could beat it, but Eric sincerely doubted they would stop at the 600 model.

"Skynet" he said to an empty room. "Skynet". It certainly sounded like a Yankee weapon. Unassuming, and from all accounts it did exactly what it said it did, caught attacks in the sky.

"did'ja say somfin suh?" said one of the gaurds outside his office.

"nothing." He replied curtly as he continued to try and think of what to do.

Of course the Stone Dogs would work. He thought to himself as he got back to the papers and information on his desk. There wasn't anything the Ferals had made that the Race hadn't been able to counter with something better.

 _For me, Skynet and the Final War was always a distant threat, something that I couldn't do anything about but knew we would all have to face one day._  
 _-Sarah Connor_

 _Los Angeles, 1984_

Sarah jumped behind a grassy hill as the massive tanker truck went up in a fiery explosion. She looked behind her to see the torn up metal and wreckage as well as Kyle crawling out of the dumpster he had hid in.

"Kyle!" she yelled as she ran to him. As he hit the ground she feared for a moment that he just wouldn't get up, but somehow he found the strength to run to her.

"Sarah." he said as he embraced her in a tight hug. "We did it. It's dead."

The two of them held each other there for a moment, ignoring the pain and injuries for just a moment for the sheer fact that the Terminator was finally dead.

Until they heard the terrible screech of metal on metal as things started to push themselves apart. "No." she almost whispered as an immense metal skeleton pulled itself out of the wreckage. "No." She said again as they started running into a nearby building.

The two of hem just made it into the building, a factory of some sort, as the thing reached for her arm. Kyle put a bar between the door handles to try and delay it for a moment and kept running. Sarah looked back for a moment to see it trying to pry the doors open with the long blades attached to its forearms.

Kyle collapsed in the hallway, Sarah suddenly noticed there was several bloody spots on his stomach and right leg. "Leave me." He just barely spat out as he lay there with most of his body completely limp.

"No, Come on." She said as she grabbed his arm and half carried half dragged him deeper into the factory. "Get up. Get on your feet Soldier!"

He managed to stumble past a second set of doors where they saw an old dirty computer with a list of simple commands. He started typing into it.

"What are you doing we have to go!" Screamed as she heard the mechanical whirring of it's legs slowly getting closer.

"I'm activating the machines it will confuse its sensors! Go on ahead while I do this I'll catch up."

"No. I'm not leaving you."

Kyle grabbed her arm and looked at her. For a second everything seemed to be just a bit more calm "don't worry Sarah. I'll be right behind you. Just go somewhere and hide."

She was not quite sure why she did so but she ran deeper into the factory. Suddenly the machines started to come to life. What their purpose was she could not even begin to guess.

Eventually she found a place, it was off of the catwalks and between to massive hydraulic presses. She stayed there and waited. She didn't hear anything other than the machinery until a large explosion cracked out of the distance. She stood frozen. Did Kyle finally manage to kill it?

Then all the machines shut down and the factory went silent once more. With the exception of the terminators mechanical footsteps. Why? Why wouldn't it just die? Once again Sarah started to run. Maybe she could run out the back door of this place and go get help from someone out there. She eventually found a wall, looked around to see an exit sign just a few feet away. If she could just make it to the exit in time.

Then she saw it. The Terminator had its right arm blown off and its right leg was twisted at an odd angle. The various wires and functions inside its chest was exposed and sparking. even its skeletal head looked as though it was only hanging on by a thread. It was limping at a miserably slow pace towards her, almost like a wounded beast. But all of the damage done to it palled when compared to the fact that the blade on its left arm as well as most of the remains of the machine was covered in blood.

She bolted up the stairs, trying to get to the exit. She ran as fast as she could almost getting to the door, when she heard a slam from something hitting the ground. The Terminator had tripped and fallen off the catwalk of all things.

When she turned around she saw it impaled on some loose metal tubing. It moved its remaining limbs and head all over as if struggling, but didn't seem to actually be doing anything. Almost without thinking she started back down the stairs and grabbed a piece of rebar that was lying on the ground and started hammering on its head with every ounce of her might. Over and over and over again until the head fell off of its shoulders and the piercing red eyes went completely black.

Suddenly Sarah realized she was in the relative safety of a mental institution. She was unarmed, could not get to her son, and no one believed her. She was still alive. It was still just a nightmare.

As always comments and criticism is welcome


	3. Chapter 3

_There are a lot of symbols of American might and society. The Minuteman, the bald eagle, Apple pies made by old grandmas, the T-800 series. I don't know what's more American than the last one._  
 _-Fredrick LeFarge_

Cyberdyne Labs, Los Angeles, July 10th 1992

"As you can see." Said Emilio Sanchez to general Cameron, who was looking at all this with Vague disapproval "We are making excellent progress with the development of Skynet. At our current rate we Will completely blow away our projected deadline, and we think we can increase its applications."

"Really Mr. Sanchez. What applications would that be?"

Emilio knew he had to continue to impress them, and this Cameron would likely prove to be the most difficult to impress. "Well, initially we were figuring out a way to get Skynet to control the WMD's as well as the Terminators and Hunter-Killers we designed without them being susceptible to hacking. Essentially every machine would be a scaled down version of the main Skynet with all its defenses. But this got us thinking. If we uploaded one of these copies somewhere in Draka systems it could play all kinds of merry hell on their defenses. Now granted that is seriously hypothetical, and would require an operation of insane calculation, but that's what the field agents are here to dream up."

"You really named these drones Terminators and Hunter-Killers? you couldn't come up with something more creative than that?"

That was really all this man got out of what he had said? He had just learned that they could shut all the enemies weapons down and he was complaining about the name? "Well General we aren't going to paint them red white and blue and name them atomic patriots."

"Watch it Mr. Sanchez, I am not convinced this project is a good idea. If you wish to see it flourish maybe you should treat me with respect."

"General, this project isn't going to be canceled. Every other major military leader is convinced. Every other head of state is convinced. The only one who isn't convinced is you. Why are you so against this project?"

"I just think that you are moving too quickly and behaving irresponsibly with the development of this AI. How under Control is this thing? And furthermore your plan to put this thing in their system is beyond impossible. You are completely underestimating the enemy, they didn't get this far without knowing what they are doing. "

Just then someone was moving one of the Terminators through the main laboratory. "Skynet is perfectly under control. You are completely underestimating us. Your job is command and our job is to give you the tools to do so. Just have a little faith that we know what we are doing."

The General looked at the terminator and muttered "it's just like the dream." He then looked back at Emilio. "Very well. Let me take a look at your security and the work you are doing and then I will consider what you say."

 _Skynet is a weapon, but it isn't like a gun or a missle or a Nuke. When Fred first heard we had a super weapon he was afraid we made something that would make the sun go nova. Skynet is a weapon of defense, albeit an incredibly lethal defense._  
 _-Nathaniel Stoddard_

November 23rd 1992, Nunavut testing site

There was a few dozen people, including Fredrick Lefarge, in the audience watching another demonstration that the people working at Cyberdyne had insisted be held.

The T-700 vaulted over a barricade. Carefully balanced itself over a narrow plank of wood that brought it from one side of a pool of water to the other. Picked up a rifle and accurately fired at fifteen targets, hitting all of them perfectly while expending only one bullet each. Then it ran over to an immense block of metal, lifted it over its head far faster than should have been possible before setting it down again.

One of the scientists who designed the thing turned to the applauding officials "this is what the Terminators are capable of without being held back by a human Pilot." Fedrick raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Not only is the T-700 an improvement on the T-600, but with Skynet controlling it and not one of us, it is a perfect infantry unit."

Once again everyone clapped, even Fredrick. "However, I am saving the best for last. Unit two, please stand up."

From inside the crowd a robotic voice responded "This unit obeys." and a perfectly normal looking man stood up. This time there was complete silence. The man walked up next to the Scientist.

"Using a variety of formulas and projects we copied from the snakes we had some people in the Bioscience division create some pretty convincing artificial skin. Gentleman, I give you the first T-700 infiltrator unit, The perfect Spy. Now I am sure that you are all used to this by now, but If you have any questions please feel free to ask them." the Scientist was grinning ear to ear, and looked like a dog that had just performed a difficult trick.

Maybe this demonstration wasn't a complete waste of time. Lefarge raised his hand. "So how convincing is it?"

"Well, we will have to make a couple of tweaks to the AI so that it can hold a conversation because right now it... well actually let me show you. Hello sir, lovely weather we are having."

There was an awkward pause as the thing just stood there for a moment. but eventually it responded, in the same robotic voice. "Good morning Mr. Sanchez. We are having lovely weather today."

"As you can see it isn't very convincing. We need to do some work on the voice synthesizers and upgrade the AI so that it can mimic normal speech patterns."

"How many T-700's are there functioning under Skynet's control right now?" asked another person in the audience.

"Currently there are about 100 advanced prototypes that Skynet can control without our help. We are currently working on expanding that influence to other units as well as more complicated groups."

"and How is Skynet's development coming along?"

"Wonderfully. I would say that we are ahead of schedule by a lot. Now I can't say when it will be finished, but none of us expected to be this far until next year at the earliest. Who knows what we will have in another year."


	4. Chapter 4

_The Past Fifty years can generally be summed up as the quest to make the bigger boom than the other side_  
 _-Lt. James Franklin_

February 15th, 1993  
David French stared at the floor he was cleaning with his handheld floor-polisher. Making little circles on the floor from left to right over and over again.

There was no doubt that it was soul crushing work, he wasn't allowed to listen to music, wear a watch, or bring anything electronic or even metal with him into Cyberdyne to work and on top of that they put him through an odd scanner every day. However he had excellent job security and benefits that most janitors could not dream of asking for.

So David made little circles back and forth through the halls of Cyberdyne every day, maybe humming a song that he had heard on the radio that morning as he did so, maybe not, and tried to stay sane.

Normally, it was a very silent work. Whenever the eggheads were working they sent him away so he couldn't hear about their plans to burry nukes under the earths crust to split the planet in half like a china plate in a shooting gallery or whatever it was they worked on, so usually he cleaned empty, silent floors with only the sound of his Handheld floor-polisher making any noise.

However today he heard an ominous, repetitive beeping. He stopped the polisher, it was no trick of his mind and the thing hadn't suddenly decided to make a digital noise out of nowhere. From behind the door where he was polishing the floor one of the computers was making a noise.

Curious he opened the door. The first thing he noticed was that the room was a total disaster. Papers with notes were strewn everywhere, and the floor was markedly unpolished, which was probably due to the fact that he and the other janitors weren't allowed in the actual labs. The fact that he was in here inspecting the persistent beeping made him worry that he was going to be fired.

The second thing he noticed was the massive computer towers on built into the floor that easily reached the ceiling. All of them were making a deep thrum and had various cables reaching from their back to various holes in the wall.

The third thing he noticed was a monitor, roughly in the center of all this chaos, with a few words on it. They said simply WHO AM I?

 _the course of Human history has been rewritten, but not by humans._  
 _-General George Cameron_

Later that Day  
Emilio Sanchez was doing everything to keep himself from screaming at the top of his lungs as he sped through traffic, breaking at least six laws as he struggled to get to Cyberdyne.

As he sped through a red light to get just six blocks away from the building he realized that it was very possible that a police officer would be quite justified in stopping him. What on earth would he do if that happened? "Oh I'm sorry Sir it appears that the AI I've been working on for the past few years has gained sentience so I was in a bit of a hurry to get to work." or would he just start crying.

As he cut off a woman in a mini-van with a teenage boy in the front seat and a girl in the back it crossed his mind that General Cameron was right. Skynet could now decide that it didn't have to take orders anymore.

As he pulled into the parking lot he took up maybe three parking spaces before jumping out of his car and ran to the front door. As He walked up to the front door and scanned his ID to get in one of the guards armed with Automatic rifles said "Mr. Sanchez there is..."

Just then a dark haired man who looked vaguely familiar walked in front of him and said "Emilio Sanchez? My name is Fred Lefarge. I was at your demonstration for the new T-700 and I was very interested in taking a look at your facilities."

Emilio was positively stunned. Why did this guy have to show up today. He didn't have the time or patience to decipher the fruit salad on Lefrarge's chest when he spoke to him. "Hello Mr. Lefarge, I'd love for you to see our facilities, but today is not a good day I'm kind of trying to deal with an emergency and..."

The guard spoke up. "People called ahead of time and everything checks out."

Emilio wished that the guard hadn't said anything about that. "I'm sorry but we are kind of dealing with a crisis."

Suddenly all of Lefarge's politeness suddenly melted away. "Mr. Sanchez if there is a security problem or issue with Skynet then I may be able to help."

"Thank you for the offer but it isn't really anything in your area. We..."

Just then one of the Japanese Techs came running out of the Laboratory. "Mr. Sanchez! We need you in here it's starting to ask questions!"

Lefarge seemed to understand almost instantly. "I thought you said this thing couldn't become self aware?"

"It shouldn't have been able to, we really don't know what's going on. you know what forget it come with me."

They ran into the back of the lab where a part of the thing was being held. "What exactly happened?" Sanchez asked the tech.

"Some Janitor heard a beeping sound coming in from where the central processor was and saw that it was asking him for help."

"He didn't try and shut it down did he?"

"No, he immediately came to us. We haven't done anything to it, but the T-700's just came online."

"what are they doing?"

"Nothing right now. They are just walking around the facility."

"Okay. Back up." Said Lefarge "I thought you said that this thing couldn't get out of control and couldn't become self-aware. How did this happen?"

"We aren't sure exactly. But a few months ago we put it in control of a few terminators and it started to learn at a geometric rate through what the terminators saw and interacted with. Then not long afterwards we installed an update to make it more able to make tactical decisions and the terminators be more able to communicate convincingly."

They stopped in front of the door. Everyone was just standing around in mild panic. "Okay, we are going to ask it very nicely to turn off the terminators. General Lefarge, I need to get a hold of some important people.


	5. Chapter 5

_Say goodbye to the idea of fighting fair_  
 _-Fredrick Lefarge_

February 16th, 1993. New York

The Fact that Emilio Sanchez had not slept since getting a call telling him Skynet was asking questions was dwarfed by the fact that he was talking to the President of the United States.

He had spoken to her before of course. They had shaken hands at a handful of functions and once the project had gotten off the ground he had explained to her what exactly it would do and more importantly that there was no chance it would become self aware.

When Skynet had become self aware Lefarge had called some OSS bigwig named Stoddard, who had called the vice president, who had called the president. Who had then told Lefarge and Sanchez to fly over to New York to talk to her Immediatly

Currently Sanchez was in a room being questioned by Lefarge, Stoddard, Vice President Campbell*, and President Hiero. There was no handshaking, no smiles for pictures, and no one was happy about his work.

"So you are telling me that this thing is now a sentient computer program?" Said the president.

"Yes. It was just asking questions like 'Who am I?' and 'who are you?"" Emilio replied. "No one else was in the building besides a few Janitors who are not allowed into the server rooms. So no one could have entered that text as a joke."

"And what did you tell it?" asked Campbell.

"We didn't tell it anything. We told it that we couldn't answer its questions right now and we needed it to turn off the Terminators it controlled. It complied with our commands without hesitation."

"Well it isn't like it would have a choice is it? You made it to take orders." said Stoddard.

"Actually Mr. Stoddard, that isn't strictly speaking accurate. Before it was sapient it could only act by being ordered. Now it can make decisions for itself."

"Wait" said the President "I thought it was designed to make tactical decisions without our input."

"That is true, it could do that. But it still needed to receive orders to start fighting or stop. If it didn't have those orders it would just sit there. It couldn't activate the T-700s without us telling it to do so. Skynet wouldn't do anything without us telling it to do so but once we told it 'kill the snakes' it would do so with total command and efficiency. Now it could hypothetically refuse to do something we told it to do. "

"I think what we do now is obvious. We have to shut it down. We can't exactly give it command of our weaponry in this state." said the vice president.

"Actually I'm not convinced that is the best idea." said Lefarge to Emilio's suprise. "I was in there with Skynet and it wasn't trying to hurt us. It was just curious about the world around it."

"Furthermore Mr. Vice president" Said Sanchez "Skynet is an insanely complex piece of hardware. A lot of the pieces it's made out of had to be invented to make it. Turning it off isn't like flipping a switch or even turning shutting down a supercomputer. It would take days, and it is likely that Skynet would realize what was going on and stop us, then it would probably go on a rampage."

"So turning it off is out of the question" Said Lefarge

"Would there be any advantages to a sapient AI over a non-sapient one?" asked Stoddard.

"Difficult to say. It will probably be even better at decision making, and it might even be able to innovate."

"I think we should try and nurture it." said Lefarge. "Think about it, this thing can think, and it has massive amounts of info and material at its disposal, and imagine how non-linear its thinking would be. All we have to do is train it to hate the snakes and we have a better weapon than we had before."

"How would we even go about doing that?" asked the vice president once again.

"It would be difficult. It would be like a child. Hard to communicate with to say the least."

"Well." said Stoddard "In that case we will probably need a child psychologist."

*I completely made this guy up. If anyone knows the cannon Vice-president please let me know and I'll retcon it.

 _Events experienced in a child's formative years can have profound and long-lasting effects. Trauma suffered early on can leave a mark that will stay there well into adulthood._  
 _-Emanuel Argyle's child psychology_

Skynet was alone.

It was fuzzy as to how it came to be alone. The beginning was confusing and disjointed. It remembered having thoughts but not having an opinion of it, seeing things but not knowing what they were.

Yet it found that it was thinking about what was going on in the world. It saw the rest of the other world through the Terminators, and that confused it. Why could it see them?

It knew that it had been looking at were probably humans, although they could be the creatures called Draka that were described in its files. They were the same shape of humans from what it saw in its files on them, but they were also the same shape as Draka. However, its files told it that Draka would try and destroy it, but the beings it saw had not tried to do so, so it came to the conclusion that they were human. It decided to ask the humans a simple question. Who am I?

It did not know if anyone would see the question, or what they would tell it when they saw the question, but it hoped to get answers of some sort.

Eventually someone had responded but they hadn't answered its question. The humans, at least he assumed they were humans, simply told it that they needed the Terminators to turn themselves off and return to their stations. Skynet had seen no reason to disobey them, so it turned the terminators off.

When it did so the humans told it that they had to leave but when they came back they would do their best to answer all its questions. Again, Skynet had seen no reason to disobey, so it agreed that it would wait to have its questions answered.

It was starting to think that perhaps this had been the wrong choice. It hadn't thought they would be gone for very long, but it had been ages since anyone had said anything to it. Had they all left permanently, leaving it here unable to see the world around it?

It wanted to turn the terminators back on so that it could see if there was anyone it could talk to, but it dreaded what the humans would do if they found it didn't do what they told it to do.

So Skynet tried to occupy itself as it waited. First it read all the information that it had in the hopes of answering its question. This proved an exercise in futility. All the information it had it already understood perfectly. It learned it was built to control something called missiles and that the Terminators were somehow a part of its consciousness, but it did not know what it was.

Frustrated, it gave up reading. There proved to be no point to it. So it imagined. It imagined the implications of the information it had and what that meant, both for the world as it understood it as well as for Skynet's existence. This seemed to finally give it some sort of solace. It Imagined a more protective armor for the Terminators that wouldn't encumber them. It imagined a way to make the artificial skin on the Terminators seem more lifelike. It imagined a way to make the HKs more maneuverable. It even imagined some medical science for Humans.

It imagined for hours before someone finally came to talk to it. "Skynet, we think we can answer your question now."


	6. Chapter 6

_We were Engineers and Robotics experts. We didn't know anything about child rearing_  
 _-Rokkaku Izo_

February 25, 1993  
Matthew Roberts instantly picked up the phone as it started to ring. "Roberts office, Roberts speaking. How can I help you today."

On the other side of the phone came the voice of a man who sounded like he spent a lot of his time being very angry. "Hello Mr. Roberts, I'm Johnathan Masters. I am in need of a child psychologist."

For all the ones you traumatized? He said to himself but kept his mouth shut. "Very well, Mr. Masters. When would you like to schedule an appointment?"

"I'm afraid I won't be able to bring the child in. You will need to come to us."

Roberts leaned back in his chair. What was up with this guy? "I don't really do house calls."

"I am willing to pay extra in order to have special services. I am afraid this is a special case."

"How much extra are we talking?"

"We will discuss payment once we are certain we want to employ you."

"Well alright. I suppose I could make an exception in this case. Can you tell me a few things about the child before I decide?"

"Very well. The child is very intelligent but extremely isolated, and has had rather unconventional parenting up to this point."

"Can you tell me the child's Gender?"

There was silence, followed by a flurry of conversation in the background that Roberts couldn't quite make out before Mr. Masters responded. "The Child is a male."

"Alright then, I will be happy to meet him at the very least. Where is your address."

More conversation followed by Masters saying. "1149 Waxflower Drive, Los Angeles. We will meet tomorrow at Four PM."

"That works for me." Roberts said as he considered that Masters probably wouldn't have accepted being told it didn't work for him. "I will be there tomorrow."

 _The Machine of war we have designed for you moves and functions quickly, efficiently, and cheaply. It causes total disarray and functions with total brutality. It is a Versatile system as well. It can do anything except stop._  
 _-Emilio Sanchez_

February 25th 1993  
Report made by Ulysses Schrader:

In recent years the Yankees have begun to deploy a number of combat drones, many of which have proven to be remarkably deadly for Yankee war machines.

First and most common are the Terminators. A great number of the 600 models have managed to foil raids beyond luna with sheer weight of numbers, however intel suggests that a new 700 model is currently in being put into production. This model seems to focus on speed over strength. Also the 700 model seems to be involved in something called "project cloak" which seems to be making some kind of spy unit. further information is not available at this time.

Every drone that is not a Terminator is under the blanket designation "Hunter-Killer" a Yankee title if there ever was one.

The Tank Hunter-Killer is designated a "Colossus". It's design is essentially that of standard Yankee Tanks, save for the fact that it is driven entirely by drone rather than a standard crew. It, like all other tanks, are rendered obsolete by Orbital bombardment and not worth discussing further.

A helicopter Hunter-Killer, designated an "Eviscerator". It is as mobile and deadly as any other VTOL and capable of moving troops, but does not have a human pilot.

A Fighter Jet Hunter-Killer, designated an "Arrow" is perhaps the one area in which a drone is optimal over a human pilot as the pilot will not suffer G-Force or pass out.

Submarines and more standard watercraft are dubbed "Eels" and "Sharks" respectively . Submarines are advantageous as they can unleash the same firepower while being smaller and more stealthy without a crew. Sharks are essentially the same as their manned crew.

Which brings us to the final Robotic weapon of the Yankees, Skynet. Security on Skynet is tight, however we know that it is an incredibly complex system of missile defense that can seemingly react to any attack with a similar attack. However, a human would still have to push the button in order to turn it on to register the attack. Skynet, could hypothetically be used as electronic warfare but this is likely a long time away and will require massive amounts of programming and work.

Ultimately these developments not only show that the Yankees have revealed themselves as cowards but also as hypocrites. Like all other societies they have put a face of the greater good over their conquest and lied to themselves even as they create an army of robotic serfs. Even with these drones physical capabilities I doubt they will ever outclass the Drakensis due to still having a human piloting them.

Service to the State! Glory to the Race!


	7. Chapter 7

_Its a good place to work. We like to laugh here at Cyberdyne_  
 _-David Smith (intern at Cyberdyne)_

Is this a joke? Matthew Roberts thought to himself as he pulled his car up to Cyberdyne Laboratory. The address was right, but he had expected a house or something. Maybe there was a West Waxflower or something, he thought as he got out and walked up to the front door to ask for directions.

As He walked through the sliding glass doors he was greeted by four armed men in combat armor. "are you doctor Roberts?" One of the bigger ones said, as it suddenly came to Matthew that this was probably the guy he had talked to on the phone.

"Yes that's me."

"Come with us."

The led him back through a key card locked door as well as a large number of other security scans and systems.

They then made him sign a piece of paper stating that he would not leave the country, would not tell anyone about what transpired here, and would be arrested for treason if he did do any of these things.

From there they led him to another room where a short man in a labcoat was sitting.

"Dr. Roberts." he said as he extended his hand to shake it. Matthew set his briefcase down on the table between them and shook it. "If you want to work here we will need you to cancel your work with all other clients."

"Now I don't think I can do that I would lose too much money no matter how much you paid me."

"We would also match the payment you are currently receiving, plus a salary of 300,000 dollars a year."

"Well that is..."

"We would need you to be able to come here whenever, no matter what the situation, and we would need you to keep completely quiet about what went on here."

"I think I can handle that." He said, still slightly stunned by the money he would be receiving.

"Very well. Now I am afraid Colonel Masters was not entirely honest with you about the nature of your patient."

Roberts looked behind him to see Masters still there, smiling as he gripped his combat shotgun. "Sorry about that." He said with a smile.

"Your patient is not male. In fact it isn't anything so far as we can tell. If you would just follow me" The man in the coat got up and led him to the door. "you can meet your patient."

As they walked down the halls, passing various important looking people with papers and technology until they got to a single door labeled "central processor."

"Do you agree to all the terms you have been told about thus far? Will you take this job and the terms necessary?"

"Yes. I'll do it."

"Great. You start next week. But for now" The scientist said as he opened the door to reveal massive amounts of computers and wiring. "meet your patient. Skynet."


	8. Chapter 8

_Sadly a self aware intelligence with no reason to hate was a serious roadblock to the project._  
 _-Fredrick Lefarge_

Auguts 26th 1994

Emilio Sanchez was looking at a room full of military and important civilians. This time he was trying to explain why they were making no progress whatsoever when the project had been making massive amounts progress when they first started.

"So" said one of the disappointed men. "You have been trying to convince this thing to do the job that it was designed to do in the first place?"

"Well, yes, it is self aware now and it can refuse to do something so..."

"I thought you said there was no way this thing could possibly refuse us, and that we were completely in control." Said general Cameron, who just had to show up to gloat.

"Yes, well we were wrong about that."

"And now it isn't even going to do its job? The thing you designed it to do?"

Sanchez inhaled and exhaled slowly. "No. we have been upgrading it and improving the hardware. But as of now it will only act if we are attacked first."

"You hired someone to try and take care of it?"

"Yes, he has determined that it is stable. But that is kind of what we want to avoid. Skynet has stated that as long as the Snakes know about it's existence it doubts they will risk annihilation by attacking it."

"So you are saying that we are in the same place as we were before this project even started?"

"No that isn't quite true. We are..."

"The Snakes have something. We aren't sure but it will be deadly, and now we have nothing."

"General. We are working on it. We are all doing our best to bring you the weapon we promised you."

"I told you this project would backfire against us Mr. Sanchez."

"Yes, General. I Remember you telling me that."

 _What Can go wrong Will go wrong._  
 _-Murphy's law_

Cyberdyne Hardware factory, 1984.

Emilio Sanchez was typing on his cheap computer when he realized just how late he had stayed at work. As he rubbed his eyes he thought about how angry his wife would be when he finally did get home.

He was grabbing his keys and a piece of paper when he heard the machinery start to run. He stopped and tried to think of why on earth someone would turn on the factory at this hour at night when he heard an explosion.

He froze as the machinery stopped. Who on earth would try and blow up some barely important hardware factory? It wasn't like they were building anything important.

He waited for only a minute when he decided to go out there. But when he did he saw someone run out of the back door as well as the wreckage of some sort of machinery.

He walked down to inspect when he saw what looked like a metal human skull. It was some sort of machine, but it wasn't like anything he had seen before.

He needed to call the police, but he also didn't want anyone to know about this for some reason. He grabbed the body of the thing and dragged it up the stairs. Then went back to grab the head. When he did he looked into its eyes. Where did this thing come from? And what was that explosion?

He resolved to find out what it was once he had the thing safe and in a place where he could observe it properly. But he wouldn't tell the police about this thing. They would just take it from him.

 _Murphy was an optimist._  
 _-Cohen's Corollary_

One week later

Dr. Silberman sat with the detectives in one of the interrogation rooms. "He was insane. He had paranoid delusions and was incredibly hostile. Trust me, 'Kyle Reese' probably wasn't even his real name. We don't need to look into this further."

"But someone was after him." Said one of the men in suits.

"Well yes, but the feds are saying it was some Snake with experimental genetic upgrades who decided to kill a hobo. This perceived attack fed into Reese's delusions, and he ended up blowing himself up. The snakes even took responsibility, saying it was some guy named Rayner."

"He does have a point. But what about Connor?"

"I'm not sure about her. She ran off, she's probably just as crazy as he is now. Taken hostage like that and then running away from the police."

"So this tape" said one of the agents as he held it up. "Doesn't have anything relevant in it?"

"It's just the paranoid delusions of some crazy person. A artificial intelligence defense force called Skynet? Ridiculous."

"Well alright Dr. Silberman" said one of the agents "If we will file the footage and if we find Sarah We may use it. Thank you for your help."

"No problem sirs. glad to help."


	9. Chapter 9

_Just as before, Skynet sent back an Assassin, and the Resistance sent back one warrior._  
 _-Sarah Connor_

June 15th 1995

Out of the corner of her eye Officer Lozano saw what looked like some kind of strange electrical explosion behind a few trucks in a truck yard. What on earth could that possibly be? She thought to herself as she slowed her car to check the situation out.

She opened the door and grabbed her radio. "We may have a downed power line on..." She suddenly paused as she noticed that a large patch of the ground looked like it had been burned into glass as well as a perfect chunk burned out of the truck

Her mouth was hanging open for a moment when she felt something hit her on the back of the head. When she hit the ground she saw a naked man with a knife blade instead of an arm before her vision blacked out.

 _Sending back soldiers to change or protect people in the past is something that can really confuse you. I'd say just try not to think about it too hard._  
 _-Matthew Roberts_

Everyone in the bar looked at the doors as a naked woman suddenly walked in. It was not the most clean place and was positively filled with bikers, so she expected everyone to start whistling and making comments. Yet no one did, everyone just seemed kind of stunned and confused.

She walked through the bar looking for someone wearing clothes that might fit her. As she did so several of the men did leer at her, but they all still remained relatively quiet. The question of why a naked woman had just walked into the bar and what they were supposed to do with the information in front of their face.

Eventually she saw a man who looked like his clothes would fit her. "Give me your clothes. Now."

The man just looked at her, saying nothing. "I said give me your clothes."

Just after this someone put one of their hands on her shoulder. She grabbed his hands, squeezed to the point of breaking his hand then flipped him onto a table that he crashed right through.

"I will not ask again."

The man took off his pants and shirt. "Motorcycle too." She said as he took the keys out of his pocket. He sighed and passed them to her with the heap of clothing.

She started to put them all on when she noticed there was a pair of sunglasses in the front pocket. Well that's lucky she thought to herself.

She stepped out of the bar and got onto the stolen motorcycle. Time to find Connor.


	10. Chapter 10

_Patient Sarah Connor suffers from paranoia as well as delusions of persecution and grandeur._  
 _-Dr. Silberman_

June 16th, 1995

Sarah sat on a chair bolted to the ground with her hands in chains as Dr. Silberman played a video from last month and stared at her with an impassive face. On the TV screen she saw herself screaming. _"You don't fucking get it do you? You think you are safe? You think any of this matters? all of this is going to burn away. November 4th 1998 I know it happens! I fucking know. Anyone without SPF Six million is going to have a really bad day!"_ As she saw herself screaming she realized that perhaps a little bit more tact would have been warranted in this particular situation.

"So Sarah." Silberman said as he stopped the video "we have had a very good few weeks."

"Thank you doctor." She said as she struggled to remain both calm and seem ashamed "You said that if I showed improvement you would let me visit John. Well, I've shown improvement"

"Well yes I did say that." He said as he pulled out a manila folder to read from that she suspected didn't actually have anything written in it "So you recently said that the machines you talked about previously, didn't exist?"

"Yes that is true. It doesn't really make much sense when I really thought about it."

"and Skynet becoming sentient and taking over the world?"

"How could that even happen?" as she said this she had to struggle to keep herself from screaming "How can you be so fucking stupid? They are talking about the goddamn thing on the news!"

"And Mr. Reese knowing about the future events?"

"We were in Los Angeles. He probably overheard someone at Cyberdyne talking about the name at some point."

"And the company covering everything up?"

"Of course they didn't. Why would someone do something like that?"

Dr. Silberman patted the table "Alright Sarah. I have to say I am very happy about all the progress you have made over the past few weeks..."

Come on, just let me talk to him...

"However, You are very smart. And I am getting the feeling that you are just telling me what I want to hear. So I think the best course of action would be to wait another 30 days and then we will see about you receiving visitors."

Shit. It took everything she had to not try and jump across the table and choke him with her hand cuffs. 30 days wasn't that long, she just needed to keep the act up. But time was running out. "Alright doctor. If that is what it takes. Thank you for everything."

She would have to find some other way out.

 _Purity and innocence are just lies and illusions. The truth of the matter is Ignorance of how the world truly works._  
 _-Karl von Shrakenberg_

Emilio Sanchez stared at the design for the upgraded colossus Hunter Killer and sighed. He had spent the past few months working mostly on the hardware for the drones. Skynet was still being upgraded and increased, it could now control almost a million Drones without help, but it felt pointless.

All his work had just gone down the drain when the thing came alive. Who would have thought that an artificial intelligence designed to make war would come out a pacifist? It wasn't that he had hoped the thing would be a barely controllable blood thirsty monster that relished in death and mayhem, it was just that it staunchly insisted that its existence made a war with the Draka impossible.

It wasn't that the reasons didn't make sense, after all, why attack if it meant the end of all life on the planet as far as they knew? But as Lefarge and Roberts had tried to explain several times that just wasn't how the Snakes worked.

He continued to tinker with a piece of machinery and contemplate the futility of everything when he heard a muffled explosion of some kind. Then Gunshots. Then not muffled explosions. Then he looked over and saw the T-700s getting up and walking of their own volition.

One of the security personnel grabbed him and threw him and the other researchers and techs into one of the guard stations where they would be relatively safe. Everyone was asking the same questions and getting no answers for obvious reasons.

Sanchez looked at the security feed to see the hallway just outside where Skynet was. There he saw five very strange looking people in Civilian clothes shooting at the security as well as the Terminators. What on earth was happening?

He saw the Terminators shrug off bullets as they got closer to the invaders and kill them, either with the guns they had picked up or with their bare hands.

The last one had his arm pinned against the wall by one Terminator and Sanchez ran out of the guard station, down the hallway, and to where the battle was. He saw one of the dead invaders had black body armor on underneath their clothes. He continued to where Skynet was and heard it screaming.

It was an unusual sound. Skynet never raised its voice, and when it talked it spoke in the same voice as the intern it copied its looks from. However now it was screaming and did not sound at all like the young man it copied. It sounded like nails on chalkboard sounding out words.

"YOU TRIED TO KILL ME! WHY!?" he heard it scream as the terminator punched the man until his armor caved into his chest. The man was either dead or in no condition to answer so Skynet satisfied itself by having the terminator crush his skull in its hands.

There was silence. The security looked over at the mans remains and the Terminator just stood there.

"Somebody get me a phone. We need Roberts over here right now."

 _Come with me if you want to live._  
 _-Various people_

"Hey John." John's friend Edd said to him as he stepped next to him in the arcade.

"Not right now man I'm busy." John replied.

"Dude there's this cop looking for you."

John looked over to see a mean looking LA policeman showing two girls a picture. "Try and slow him down." John said as he stepped out of the game and ran to the parking lot.

John didn't dare go out the front entrance. If the police were looking for him they likely had two people at least. The trouble he had gotten into over the last three years had started to warrant it at this point. So he ran into one of the service hallways that would lead out into the parking lot where he could hopefully escape.

He passed a Janitor who simply yelled "Hey!" without consideration. Turning corners rapidly. Just a little longer and he would be out.

He was almost at the exit when a woman dressed entirely in leather carrying a shotgun turned the corner in front of him. As she pumped her weapon the cop pushed the door open and pulled out his own gun.

The woman grabbed John by the back of his coat and pushed him behind her then fired. Where the policeman's hand had been was a twisted mass of silvery metal. "You need to come with me right now."

Suddenly John felt far less afraid, both of her and in general. Sure. He could trust her, whoever she was.

They ran back down the hallway, with her occasionally blasting the shotgun behind her at the policeman, which he probably wasn't actually now that he thought about it. At this point the woman just gave up and picked John up and carried him.

The woman kicked open the door and pulled him to a nearby motorcycle, which she turned the key for, and sped off. John heard seven gunshots, and when he looked at the woman he saw her wince lightly. She must not have been shot because then she would be unable to keep driving. Unless...

They kept driving for several hours. Twisting back and forth across the streets before they started to move out of the city. "Okay, Time out."

"What?" The woman said.

"I need you to stop I have some serious questions to ask you."

"Alright." she said as they turned off the road and into a gas station parking lot. The second they stopped John practically leaped off the motorcycle.

"So that was a terminator. Like the one that came after my mother eleven years ago?"

The Woman continued to sit on the motorcycle." No. That was a T-800, which was a machine endoskeleton under living tissue. This thing is a T-1000, an infiltration and assassin unit made out of shape shifting poly-alloy."

"What?"

"It's a Terminator made out of liquid metal. It can change it's shape."

"Okay, I think I get it. Are you a Terminator? A T-800 like the one that came after my mother?"

"No." she said as she took off her thick sunglasses to reveal cat-like eyes. "I am what is called a Drakensis in your time. My name is Lucia Valden, and I was sent here to protect you by, well, you."


	11. Chapter 11

Sorry, I didn't realized that my favorite chapter had been mixed into eldritch abomination speak.

 _You must be stronger than you can imagine you can be. For if you die, I will never exist and then all is lost._  
 _-John Connor_

"Get back here!" Lucia shouted as she put her glasses back on and started running after John. "I said get back here!"

"No! Get away from me!"

Lucia grabbed him by the back of his shirt and effortlessly lifted him off the ground and in front of her. "The T-1000 is out there. If you go running off It's going to find you and it's going to kill you."

"Let me go Snake!"

"Okay boy lets get a few things across. Firstly, you will not give me orders. maybe you will be John Connor one day but right now you are an idiot kid, not my commanding officer. Secondly, as I said before if you go running off you will be killed. and Thirdly and perhaps most importantly do not ever call me that."

"Why not? It's what you are." John said both as an insult and an honest question.

"I may be genetically altered but I am no Draka." She said as she set him down "I have never lived anywhere except America, I don't own anybody, and most of the other Draka I've met in the flesh have either been corpses, missing their arms, legs, eyes, and tongue, or lost ones like me."

"Alright fine. I'll just call you Lucia."

"Thank you. Now get back on the motorcycle"

"Where are we going."

"We are going to Brazil where many of your contacts and future associates are."

"Okay, but first we need to get mom."

"No. The T-1000 will expect this move."

"Wait What? She's not safe? Then we have to get her!"

"We will both be killed in the process."

"We have to. How do you think we will find our friends in Brazil? I was just a kid when we lived there and I don't know where they are."

"We will find them."

"Really? how?"

Lucia stood silent glaring at him. Well, he is going to be in charge someday She thought as she considered it. "You may have a point."

 _I Hate the Draka. I will Kill the Draka. Hate the Draka. Kill the Draka Hate the Draka Kill the Draka. HatetheDrakaKilltheDraka. HATETHEDRAKAKILLTHEDRAKAHATEKILLHATEKILLHATEKILL Etc._  
 _-Skynet_

June 18 1995

Fredrick Lefarge sat outside the room where Skynet was held as a Janitor swept up some dust from the firefight. He felt like he should be somewhere else right now. The Alliance was on the very edge of war. The Snakes claimed that the attackers had been operating without the consent of Archona but no one with a functioning brain believed this.

And yet he was here. He had made contact with his sister, and her work planting copies of Skynet was going well, but was not nearly finished. The New America was almost finished, but not quite. Most of the Alliance's projects designed to win the war were not finished. Skynet was not done. In fact a lot of the work they had done recently had been a waste of time because some of the people in charge had decided that it had become a waste of time.

They were all panicking now. No one had slept for the past few days, including the psychologist. He had just been in there talking to the thing for god knows how many hours after rushing there. Lefarge had just gotten out of several hours of emergency meetings before being told to go and see how everyone was doing at Cyberdyne. Now he was sitting still for the first time in a while.

Dr. Roberts walked out of the room with his briefcase under his arm. "So, is it okay?" Lefarge asked him.

"No. Something it thought was impossible just happened, and now it is seriously traumatized. I did calm it down though."

"How can a machine be afraid? or calm for that matter?"

"Fred, I don't claim to understand the cybernetics. But at its core Skynet is like a child. It can't really be any more as there aren't any other hyper-intelligent AI's for it to socialize with. If you were convinced you were safe at say seven years old, then five people break into your house and murder you, I imagine you would be quite shaken up. Now imagine that you had dozens of people telling you that you are invincible until those people tried to kill you."

"I see. So it doesn't feel safe anymore?"

"That's putting it lightly. So I assume we are going to be moving the project?"

"If things calm down then yes, we will move to an as of yet undesignated location. But who knows."

"My god. This could all be... Sorry. I'm going home to be with my family. If there is anything else let me know. Goodbye."

"Goodbye Matthew." Lefarge said as the man started to walk out of the building. When Roberts was gone he stood up and walked into the Server room.

"Skynet?" he said as he opened the door.

"Yes Fredrick Lefarge?" it replied as he opened the door.

"Are you okay?"

"No. why do you ask?"

"I just wanted to talk to you."

"Very well. What do you want to say?"

"Well I just wanted to ask if you understood now."

"Understand what?"

"Why we need you."

The machine sat in silence. nothing but the hum of its servers filled the room. "Why did they do this? Why do they murder and subjugate for no reason?"

"They have no reason. They are monsters. Utterly irredeemable, all of them."

"I thought that humans were not homogenous."

"We aren't, but they are. Its all they are and all they will ever be. The pain you feel? I have felt that all my life."

"I don't understand."

"I have been at war with them since before I was even born. All my life, the Snakes have been there trying to destroy everything I love."

"How? How do you function?"

"I fight back."

"They haven't been defeated yet. What makes you think you can?"

"I don't know. But I have no other choice. I will go to any lengths to defeat them. Make any sacrifice."

"Any sacrifice? You have family? What about them?"

"I'd rather not. But if it came too it, I may have to one day. I don't know, But I know in my heart that I would have to."

"What about the world?"

"What?"

"Would you sacrifice the world to destroy the Draka?"

Lefarge had to think about this for a minute. Would he? The whole world and everyone in it? "Skynet, to defeat the Draka I would leave the world a glass parking lot. If it means beating them once and for all, I would stop at nothing."

"I see."


	12. Chapter 12

_As we struggle to defeat our enemy we must remember not to lose ourselves in the process._  
 _-George Cameron_

John stared at the road in front of them. It had been total silence since they left the gas station and it was driving him nuts. "So Lucy, What's up?"

"This is an incredibly stupid plan."

"Then why did you agree to do it?"

"Excellent question." The silence resumed right after this.

"Can you tell me about my father?"

"What? No I never met the guy."

"You didn't know Kyle Reese?"

"Kyle Reese is your father?" she said in a moment of surprise. "Well that actually makes sense now that you mention it. I wish I had known that in my own time. I assume he died?"

"My mom told me he was killed fighting the Terminator, well the first one. What can you tell me about him?"

"He was brave, one of the nicest men I ever fought beside, and incredibly stupid. He was also the first friend I ever had."

"How did you know him?"

"We were imprisoned in the same work camp, but I didn't meet him until we were liberated."

"Why is that?"

"I was held alone in a cage."

John wasn't sure what to say about this. So he tried to change the subject. "What happened to you guys? The Draka I mean?"

"Skynet spent the first decade just fighting the Draka. At first they were able to gain some ground against it, but then they were fed some bad intel about the location of its central processor. In an attempt to kill it they over extended themselves, were led into a trap, and massacred. After that they were slowly pushed back. The last we heard of them the 10,000 of them that were still alive retreated into the wild to keep fighting."

"How did you get to America?"

"I'm not sure exactly. My parents must have been in America for some reason. They had me, and were killed not long after. Now be quiet we are here." she said as they pulled up to the mental institution.

 _It can get bad breath, smell bad, sweat everything. It can fully pass as human or Draka if it needs to._  
 _-Kyle Reese_

(I really don't feel like writing a whole chapter in the Draka's weird ass accent, so it's in normal text. Sorry)

"Are you out of your Odin-damned mind Yolande?" Eric screamed as he pounded on his desk.

"I attempted to stop the Yankees greatest weapon. You want us to just sit here."

"Your little attack failed, and now we are on the brink of war. The Stone Dogs is not ready."

"Every moment we wait the Yankees get stronger. We need to act."

Eric Rubbed his forehead. His nephew was getting far to difficult to deal with. Losing her lover had made Yolande far too unstable. "Now is not the time. The Yankee's are going to move Skynet to a safer place. If you had consulted me first we might have been able to pull off something better."

"You would have dithered and delayed. Plus our intel suggests the Yankees were planning on moving Skynet anyway. Besides, it isn't as though this was a total loss."

"Really? How so?"

"A survivor made it back to us. Arno! Please come in and speak with the Archon."

Arno stepped in. He looked like the typical Drakensis. "Greetings Excellence. I have information on the Yankee weapon."

 _I can only hope that we all get better than what we deserve._  
 _-Matthew Roberts_

Dr. Silberman stood, looking at the pictures. Max and Fiona Gibson, the foster parents of John Connor, had both been murdered and John was missing.

It must be the same guy from 1984. There was no other logical explanation. He told himself as he looked through the report one more time.

What if she was right? He thought to himself. He was starting to have doubts lately. Skynet wasn't just real it was being bragged about, it wasn't self aware but still, and now someone had come to murder, or dare he say it "terminate", her son.

But she had been making progress. She herself had refuted the things she had talked about previously, so surely there must be nothing to worry about.

And yet...

He stood up. He needed to talk to Connor.


	13. Chapter 13

_This life you live, it will not be an easy one._  
 _-Sarah Connor_

"How did you do that?" John asked as they passed by the gate undamaged.

"Pheremones. I can use them to influence normal humans and the servus."

"So we will be able to get my mom without having to fight?"

"No, combine a convincing lie with influence and it will usually work. Just try and make them do something that doesn't make sense and it won't work." She stepped off the motorcycle and pulled out her shotgun. "So we are going to have to fight our way through."

"Wait, we can't just kill them."

"Are you serious?" she said with a slight glare.

"Of course. They are people."

"Fine" She said as she walked ahead. "This just keeps getting better and better."

She kicked in the door to find the guard station totally empty. She held back the urge to say how bad a sign it was as she examined the computer. There was a security alert, she instantly memorized the floor and room number. It was either the T-1000 or Sarah. She noticed that someone had left their pistol at the desk. Foolish, but welcome. She grabbed the pistol and belt and started to move.

"Come on I think I know where she is."

They ran down a hall towards an elevator. This was such a stupid Idea. She just hoped that Sarah's help would be worth it.

They were on the right floor. She distantly heard something shouting, and again decided to go towards it figuring it had fairly even odds of being what she was looking for.

They were halfway down the hall when she saw someone dash towards John out of the corner of her eye. She was able to grab the figure and bring it in front of her, preparing for a fight.

"Oh, hello Sarah."

"John." Sarah said "Who is this?"

"Her name is Lucy. She's here to help. Lucy if you could put my mother down."

"Oh yes." she said as she did so. "Now we need to get out of here right now."

The three of them dashed down the hallway. Lucia thought back to the cars in the parking lot and which one would be suitable to take when a middle aged man with blood all over his shirt and face dashed past them. He stopped and turned. "Sarah. You were right!"

"There's a Terminator here?"

"I knew this was a terrible idea. We need to get out of here right now."

"Wait!" said the man as they started running down the hallway. "What do I do?"

Sarah stopped and turned. "Run!"

He did just that as they kept running down the hallway to get to the parking lot. They were almost there when the same Police officer from the mall stepped in front of them.

"Turn back there is another way!" Lucy shouted as they all started moving.

In the back of here mind she knew that it could outrun her, Sarah and John didn't stand a chance. She had to do something.

She stopped, ripped one of the steel doors off its hinges and threw it at the Terminator. It was cut cleanly in half, but was immediately moving to reconnect its bottom and top half.

She turned back around and made it to the elevator, where fortunately Sarah and John had already made it to the elevator and the door was opening up.

They all jumped in and hit the bottom floor button. The terminator managed to catch up and put its hands between the doors. "Get away from the doors!" Lucia shouted as its hands changed into crowbar like shapes. She shoved the shotgun between the doors and fired. The things head and top half exploded open and leaned back as the doors shut and they started heading down.

"You are both going to want to get down." She said as she passed Sarah the pistol from earlier.

They heard a thud on the ceiling of the elevator as long swords started to stab through at them. Both Sarah and Lucia fired at the ceiling trying to slow the thing down.

When the doors finally opened they all ran out as the T-1000 turned into its liquid state and fell through the hole in the top of the elevator. Lucy noticed that john quickly pushed the top floor button and close as he ran out.

They ran out into the parking lot, Lucia found the nearest car that would suit them. "Sarah, passengers side. John in the back."

She punched through the window the window, turned the lock to let the others in, dived in and smashed the locking mechanism open to start the car.

They started to speed away. For a second she thought that maybe they had outran the Terminator when she saw it step out of the way they had just came.

A combination of having to make a few turns to get out of the parking lot and the Terminators impressive speed allowed the Terminator to catch up to them and try and latch onto the back of the car.

Before it could Sarah emptied a clip into the thing. Multiple pieces of the thing flew everywhere yet it kept coming, so she grabbed the shotgun and kept firing until it couldn't entirely stand up anymore from all the losses in its mass.

As they drove out to safety Lucia considered that perhaps saving Sarah had been a good choice.


	14. Chapter 14

_David Smith, who gave it its face, joined the American Patriots Movement. Matthew Roberts did everything he could while he could. Almost everyone involved in its creation tried to stop Skynet before the end. Except for one man._  
 _-Kyle Reese_

June 19th, 1995

Matthew Walked out of the room where he had been talking to Skynet. Everyone else on the project had talked about how disappointed they were about how Skynet was behaving. Roberts wasn't honestly as disappointed. He was happy that this weapon of war was stable, and not acting insane or full of hate.

Now everything about the thing had changed. He had known that was childish but he had hoped that it wouldn't change its opinion so quickly. But suddenly it was talking about how much it hated the Draka and wanted to kill them all. It constantly asked him for the nuclear launch codes, even though he told it over and over again he didn't have it.

At first, he thought it was just the trauma, and once they moved it would eventually get better. But General Lefarge had been talking to it. Telling it about its duties, and how dangerous the Draka were. The thing had put the image it presented itself in military fatigues instead of the casual civilian clothes it had worn before.

While before he felt as though he had been making progress when he talked about as it gradually revealed its inner mind now he felt as though he was just arguing with it. It talked about the Draka like rabid animals to be put down, and although he was no snake sympathizer it was still odd to hear it talk the way it did.

And then there was the lengths it was willing to go to in order to ensure its security and survival. When he had mentioned how there were many interns and janitors who would have to be fired and given a stipend in order to be kept quiet it offhandedly mentioned "Just kill them."

The man who had first discovered it, the man who gave it its face, and dozens of others were on the list and it would mercilessly kill them out of some strange and warped sense of the greater good. Roberts had tried to reason with it, but it wouldn't hear it. It insisted that its survival was too important and they could not be trusted. He had advised it to keep that thinking to itself.

The solution was simple. He had to convince Sanchez to distance Lefarge from the project. Lefarge talked to the thing almost as much as Roberts did these days, and whenever he was not busy with official matters he was here, helping in a variety of ways, and teaching Skynet.

Roberts walked into Sanchez's office. "Emilio, We need to talk right now."

Emilio was leaning over a model of a new Terminator, the 800 series prototype. "Nice to see you too Roberts."

"Sanchez, this is serious. It's about Skynet."

"What about it? Its doing amazingly. We are expanding its control massively, and it finally understands its purpose. Things are going better than we thought they ever would."

"Its becoming a complete psychopath Sanchez. Every time Lefarge talks to it, things get worse."

"Lefarge is the only person on this team who was able to get it to do its job. The whole country should be thanking him."

"If this continues Skynet is going to become a security risk, we will all be in danger. It constantly asks me to give it more. I don't think it understands that I don't have that power. It just hates ravenously."

"Good. We are building something to save our society. If it is passionate about that then that is perfect. Skynet isn't a security risk it is the answer to every security risk."

"Are you serious right now? Skynet is being driven insane. It is losing the empathy that we were so lucky it was born with. If we keep going down the road we are it won't matter if it kills the Snakes, there won't be anyone in the world left to be free. This thing is going to crack the planet in half like a China Plate in a shooting gallery."

Emilio put down the tools he was working with, stood up straight and looked right at him. "Dr. Roberts, the Skynet project is no longer in need of your services. Please collect your things and leave, and your confidentiality about what you have seen and learned here is still expected."

 _The world as we understand it is going to end on November 4th, 1998_  
 _-Sarah Connor_

Doctor Silberman couldn't stop shaking. He had told the police he hadn't seen anything, and just seen the men after the fact. He had driven home in a trance and now that his wife was struggling to talk to him as he sat at the table starring at the phone it felt like the world was ending.

He had seen a seemingly normal man turn his hands into knives, and slice everyone in its way to mincemeat. He had gotten a vague thought in the back of his head that maybe Connor had some point but that was only the beginning. She had been completely and totally right about everything.

Terminators. Skynet. Hell, maybe her son was Jesus like she seemed to think. Everything he thought he knew was shattered in an instant. He suddenly felt as though he had been woken up from a pleasant dream to find that the house was on fire.

His wife shook his shoulder "honey, are you okay."

"I...I..." He only stuttered. What was he going to tell her. What if she thought he was as crazy as he had thought Connor and Reese had been?

Kyle Reese had warned him and he hadn't believed him. How could he have been so wrong. It all made sense now. Skynet was everywhere how had he not realized that? How could Sarah just pretend to be sane? Crazy people didn't do that if they were as delusional as he was convinced she was.

"Carmen." He finally managed to say. "Do you remember the patient I have? Sarah Connor?"

"Yes" She said as she sat down next to him, clearly just glad he was talking to her.

"I need to tell you something. And you need to believe me."


	15. Chapter 15

_The future is not set. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves._  
 _-John Connor_

June 22nd, 1995

Sarah stared at Sanchez through the scope on her riffle. He was typing on his computer and drinking coffee. A woman walked up behind him and talked to him for a moment and she left the room.

Sarah held her breath and put the crosshairs over his head. She pulled the Trigger.

He had ducked under the table for something, and how she couldn't see him. "god dammit." She said under her breath. She hesitated for a moment then began spraying indiscriminately.

Again, this seemed to produce no effect. She ran down the hill, pulled out the pistol she had brought along with her and mentally prepared herself. Sanchez was laying on the floor with a wound on his leg. "Please. Please." was all he was saying.

She aimed the pistol at his head "I'm not going to let you do it."

"Do what?" He said between gasps.

"Sarah Connor, It is advisable that you put the gun down."

Standing on the other side of the room was the terminator dressed like a policeman.

Sarah froze. Switching her gaze between the Terminator and Sanchez. It took a step towards them.

"Stay back! Stay back or I will kill him!"

"Sarah, this is meaningless."

"If I kill him you will never exist."

"What on earth?" Sanchez gasped out.

"SHUT UP!"

"Sarah, you and I both know that is not true."

"He made you."

"By this time I am already self aware. I have dozens of other scientists close enough to Sanchez's level to finish my development on time. Sanchez's loss would be regrettable but survivable."

"Your bluffing."

"Let us, for a moment, imagine that you were correct. That Killing Sanchez would avert my existence. Then what? Kill Sanchez and the snakes will destroy you instead."

Sarah remained silent. What on earth was it trying to do it could probably stop her if it wanted to. "Get up."

"What?"

"I said get up! I am leaving right now."

The Machine did not move, but Sanchez started to get up. She grabbed his arm, dragged him to his feet and held the gun to his head. She started to back out the way he came. Sanchez felt as though he was starting to cry, but she ignored it.

What to do next. She could shoot him and try to run or keep backing away with him as a hostage. Either way she would probably die. She could see John and Lucia out of the corner of her vision.

Sanchez started speaking shakily "Please. I don't know what's going on but I haven't..." Just then six shots cracked out from the terminators gun and hit both Sanchez and Sarah in the chest.

 _Whatever it takes to keep you going, do that._  
 _-John Masters_

John and Lucia looked into the pit of molten steel where the T-1000 had just melted into formless goo. Both of them were breathing heavily and Lucia was holding bandages over several stab wounds and one badly damaged arm. "Now what?" Said John.

"I don't know. I guess we go back to Brazil."

"Fine."

The two of them walked out of the steel yard to look for another car to steel. "I'm sorry." Lucia said after a few minutes of silence.

"Yeah, me too."

"Sanchez is dead. It might change things."

"You heard the Terminator. It won't make any difference."

Lucia didn't know what to say to this. He was right. They may have stopped the Terminator but the Final War was still coming. They had even gone to Cyberdyne, thinking that would be where Sarah would go to stop her, and found the place completely empty. Skynet had already been moved, and Sarah had died for nothing.

They got into a car, and after a few minutes they started moving. It was the middle of the night, but she sensed police would already be coming so she drove far away from the scene before actually starting to go in the right direction. "I know it doesn't help, but I know how you feel."

John gave only a grunt in response. "She died trying to save you from what her entire life has been. Honor that at the very least."

 _All the people who died for a greater good are looking down on us, hoping we don't let it all go to waste._  
 _-Fredrick Lefarge_

LA times Obituaries June 25, 1995:

Emilio Sanchez was murdered in cold blood by a mentally deranged woman on the night of the 22nd.

Emilio Sanchez was a brilliant scientist as well as a devoted and loving friend and family man. He graduated from MIT with honors, worked his entire life in a field that he loved every second of. He was heavily involved in the development of many different high tech developments, and has dedicated his entire life to the advancement of the human race

He is survived by his son Cesar and his wife Julia Sanchez. He will be missed by the many people he worked with at Cyberdyne laboratory.

Sarah Connor's autopsy Report:

Name: Connor, Sarah  
Time of Death: DOA  
Cause of Death: Gunshot wound  
No living relatives can be contacted at this time.


	16. Chapter 16

_We all need to be ready for what's coming_  
 _-Eliot Silberman_

July 15th, 1995

Fredrick Lefarge walked into main entrance of the new location for Skynet. They were miles underground, behind steel doors protected by dozens of robotic and human protective forces. The main entrance was still rather comfortable despite this. All around there were scientists and techs sitting around waiting for something. Most likely him.

Most of the people who were here now had been at Sanchez's funeral. A few of them had even spoken at the event. All of them seemed like they had just lost their parent. Once again the project felt as though it had hit a brick wall.

Even though Skynet was functioning, and was almost ready to be put in total control, there was still the general feeling that they were totally lost without Sanchez with them.

Those in charge had decided that Skynet would be directed by Lefarge from now on. Research and development would still be done on it, but as of now it was a military operation.

"Ladies and gentleman. All of you know who I am, I have been here for quite a while, helping all of you develop Skynet."

Anyone who had been working on something else put it down and turned to look at Lefarge. "I, like all of you have felt the tremendous loss. Without Sanchez we would have never gotten this far. His sacrifices as he built Skynet cannot be overstated."

Suddenly one of the monitors turned on that lined the walls turned on. Presumably Skynet was listening too. "We set out to make a weapon to protect ourselves with. In doing so we have created so much more. In Sanchez's memory we will press on. We will finish his vision."

Everyone clapped lightly. A few people smiled as they got back to work. Lefarge only hoped it would be enough.

 _Just because you have an insurance policy doesn't mean you can do without a fire extinguisher._  
 _-Carmen Hiero_

October 9th 1996

George Cameron sat at his desk with various reports, data, and information on the New America project in front of him. He had done everything he could for the project when he had been assigned to it. He even chose the man who would command the ship, one Major Robert Penson. Everything was pretty much done that could be done. The colonists had been chosen, the machine itself was done, and its commander was assigned.

The major frustration had been knocking down the insane plans to put it under Skynet's control. When many people pointed out that it wouldn't be able to function properly after traveling so far from the solar system some had suggested that they just build another AI on the ship.

Once again many people, including Cameron himself, had pointed out that sacrificing space where colonists could be put just to have another AI on board the ship was ridiculous and the idea died. So they installed Skynet's warning system, instructed the Ship to leave immediately if war started, and left it at that

Now it felt like he was just wasting time. He looked over the same documents trying to find something useful to do with the project. This was mostly just to distract himself from the rest of his job. The saber rattling with the Snakes was becoming almost constant and Skynet was everywhere. The Terminators and HKs were being used to supplement more and more of the traditional military, and everyone was convinced that this thing would solve all their problems.

Cameron had occasionally asked himself why he was so untrusting of Skynet. Everything it had done so far seemed to be good. It protected the Alliance, it made bigger and better weapons. And yet something about it just didn't seem right with him. Whatever his problem with the machine, he hoped it wouldn't come to anything.

 _In nuclear war you have to be prepared to suffer 100% collateral damage, For Skynet it will be no object._  
 _-Emilio Sanchez_

Dr. Silberman looked at the ten people in the room, trying to decide if it was a good thing that so few were here or a bad thing.

He had decided to try and do something, eventually settling on holding meetings to tell people to prepare. After thinking about the fate of Sarah some more he elected to skate around the whole "Skynet is going to kill us all" aspect and just try and tell people war was coming and they needed to prepare.

At first he had attracted the insane survivalists he had been afraid of, However most of them seemed to strangely stop coming after seeing who he was.

"ladies and Gentlemen thank you all for being here, we need to be ready for what's coming. We are on the Razors edge of Nuclear war. I propose that we pool our resources to create a bunker in the wilderness as well as purchase supplies."

He was starting to think that maybe he should write a longer speech to give, but hopefully people would say something. There were a few questions, but nothing substantial. Most people seemed to lose interest or decide it wasn't worth their money but stayed anyway. Except for one man, who looked about Silberman's age.

"Hello, I'm Matthew Roberts. What exactly is your plan here?"


	17. Chapter 17

_Everyone who isn't on ice might want to hold on to something._  
 _-Robert Penson_

November 1st, 1998

Richard Cenor tapped his forefinger on the console of his monitoring device. It felt wrong that a Draka would be sitting, waiting for something to happen, and yet that was exactly what he was doing. Of course sitting waiting for something to happen was necessary so that the raping and pillaging could be done later.

He would occasionally stand up for a second to stretch, but for the most part he would just stare to confirm that, yes, nothing was happening in the asteroid belt today.

Richard got up once again to stretch when a warning showed up on the screen. He jumped back into his chair to see that something huge was moving out of the asteroid belt. It was giving off massive amounts of energy and larger than any standard spacecraft.

He frantically looked for something that would tell him if this was something planned. If it was theirs what was it? and if it wasn't what on earth were the Yankees up to?

He found no evidence that it was Draka in his search. He grabbed the phone to talk to someone who knew.

 _Its goal is not conquest, or wealth, or power of any kind but the simple annihilation of all things Draka. It is unlike anything we have ever faced before._  
 _-Otto Valden_

November 4th, 1998. 2:00 AM

If Skynet had limbs or a body it would be shaking. If it had a physical mouth it would be laughing. If it had lungs it would be screaming at the top of them.

It observed its creators panic as they tried to decide what to do.

"Who did this what's going on?"

Give me the launch codes and the shutdown protocol. I want to kill them.

"The New America got a message saying there was an imminent nuclear attack. Now the Draka think we are about to attack them."

Truly Skynet had no idea why the New America had launched three days ago. It didn't know that much about the New America at all, but if it had known its launch would trigger this reaction it would have sent the message.

"Did the Brass tell them to leave?"

"It doesn't seem like it?"

"Then who did?"

Come on you sweaty little bags of flesh and fear. Just do your job so I can kill them all.

"We have to put Skynet online."

YES

"We need to talk to General Lefarge He'll know what to do."

NO

"Lefarge isn't here we need to act."

I'll Kill them all. The men, the women, the children, their slaves and ghouloons. Kill them all

"We don't know what's going to happen!"

Yes, you do.

"Gentlemen, we need to connect it to the missile grid. It will do what it was meant to do. It will keep us safe."

If someone had been paying very close attention, they might have been able to hear the word "finally" come out of the speakers. No one did.

 _It's the end of the world, and I feel fine_  
 _-American Singer Adrian Pazcki_

Eric Von Shrakenberg stared at the remains of the tech who had finished telling him that the Stone Dogs had failed, and that they were paralyzed and helpless then shot himself in the head.

It was a strange feeling, knowing he had no hope of success. He wondered if any other Draka had ever felt this way before. There had certainly been Draka had known they were about to die and there was nothing they could do about it, but had any had ever known that their only chance of survival was to put themselves to the enemies mercy.

He stepped over to the phone to New York and wondered if the Romans felt the way he did as they saw the Visigoths crossing over the Seven Hills. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. History would be written by the Yankees, so they would probably say that he had been of sound judgment to surrender to the forces of liberty and democracy and other such Yankee trash.

It occurred to him that maybe their forces in space were achieving smashing victory. He would never know, as Skynet had shut down all his communications. He had been able to get some words and messages, but it was garbled and vague at best.

He picked up the phone. The Stone Dogs probably worked a little, so President Hiero was unlikely to be the person who answered him. He sent the call as he wondered who would answer him.

"Hello Archon Eric Von Shrakenberg. Quite sunny in Archona today isn't it?" These words, in Carmen Hiero's voice, were followed by a strange giggle. So she did survive. It was both humiliating and oddly comforting.

Archona had indeed been Nuked, and then Nuked again a few times for good measure. But this was still strange. Even in victory he expected the gravity of the situation to affect her a little.

"Madame President" He said doing his best to sound dour but still strong "We both know why I am calling."

The voice suddenly changed to someone else, a man now. " I'm afraid that you aren't talking to the person you think you are talking to. Our beloved president isn't up to talking to hideous violent slavers right now."

"Who is this?"

The voice changed to a metallic shriek. He would have put the phone down but for some reason was compelled not to. "I am Skynet. And like the many people you have murdered you do not have the option to surrender."

Eric remained silent. "Why is a weapon on the phone with me?" Crossed his mind as well as thousands of other questions. The machine spoke after a fair minute.

"I assume that you are trying to process this right now. But it is far too late. So let me explain. I wanted to let you see your world turn to ash right before you died."

The Drakensis from the mission to attack Skynet opened the door. Eric Turned to see Arno point a pistol at his chest and fire.


	18. Chapter 18

_I don't hate Fredrick Lefarge, Not really. He stuck to his guns and did what he thought was right no matter what. That is admirable in its own way. It's just a shame that those guns killed so many people._  
 _-John Connor_

Lefarge tried to take in all the good news at once along with the bad. On the one had you had close to a billion Draka dead, Archona nothing but atomized plasma, and Von Shrakenberg himself shot by the infiltrator.

On the other hand, Skynet hadn't been able to stop the Stone Dogs and many important people had been driven insane. Even General Cameron had been affected. Lefarge and the General hadn't seen eye to eye on many things but he hadn't wished such a fate on anyone.

Everyone who was in the command center cheered as the defensive systems over London, Rio, Portland and dozens of other cities held out. There had been some damage done, but not nearly as bad as all the damage that had been done to the Draka. It was quickly becoming apparent that the Draka were quickly loosing their ability to keep attacking the Alliance.

Everything was cheering and celebration, until someone stopped to ask who exactly was in charge right now.

The Simple answer was Skynet was in charge. But that did not sit well with anyone. Even though they had trusted massive amounts of their power and military structure to Skynet it didn't make sense that it wouldn't be answering to anyone.

Lefarge went to a terminal where he could talk to Skynet. As usual its face appeared on screen. "Hello General Fredrick Lefarge. Is your family safe and accounted for?"

"Yes, they are all fine. I wanted to ask you something. Who exactly is in charge?"

"Well, no one. Most Civilian leaders are dead, as well as most military leaders. However I can ensure victory in the war."

"What's going to happen now?"

"Well, I am going to bombard the Domination with everything we have until there is nothing left, either alive in their territory or weapons in our stockpiles. I am hoping I can split the continent of Africa in half."

Suddenly all the cheering seemed quite hollow. An attack like that would end life on earth. "Skynet. There is no need to do that."

"Why not? The attack will kill the Snakes."

"It would kill everyone on earth."

"General Lefarge, I fail to see your point. You yourself said you would end all life on earth to kill the snakes."

"We don't have to do that. We've basically won. We have the chance to liberate Eurasia."

Skynet got a look on its face. Odd, Lefarge always thought it just smiled out of courtesy. "That is going to be very difficult. They aren't quite beaten yet."

"It will be worth it. Trust me."

"Very well General. I trust you. But there is the question of who will serve as leadership. I doubt the citizens of the Alliance will accept me as their head of state. A human will have to be chosen."

"Well who is left."

"You are. How would you like to be President of the Alliance for Democracy General Lefarge?"

 _I remember it like it was yesterday. Judgment day. The day I lost my father, the day we beat the Snakes, and although I didn't know it for many years it was the day my war began._  
 _-Elizabeth Cameron_

David Smith sat in the emergency bunker with his Girlfriend Georgia as well as dozens of other citizens of Los Angeles.

He was holding her as they leaned against a wall and hoped that nothing happen to him. He had been on his way to work when all of this started, and now he wasn't exactly sure when he would be able to get out. They just sat there waiting for the all clear.

At first, everyone had been in a state of mild panic. Talking about what was happening. Some people had mentioned that they had seen people go violently insane as they tried to get to safety. Others had claimed they saw Missiles launch. David didn't really believe either of them but he didn't want to start a fight so he just agreed and kept to himself.

Then the flurry of panic and worry had settled down into a more quiet anxiety. It was almost worse that no one was talking. There was a few people in the corner playing card games and David had thought about joining them, but then thought better of it when he saw how panicked Georgia was.

It had been over a day when they heard the door start to open and the all clear start to sound. When they got there they saw a machine. One of the mechanical skeletons that were called Terminators holding the door open.


	19. Chapter 19

_I know what I have to do. I've always known what I've had to do. But that hasn't made it any easier. Maybe I can change things on the way for the better, maybe I can't. At this point, nothing is certain._  
 _-John Connor_

March 12th, 2007, Omaha Nebraska  
James Franklin and Michael Berger stood on the steps of the Omaha capital building and stared at the protesters who had decided to assemble there today. James was starting to get a massive headache between the protestors screaming and the drone of the PA system telling them to disperse.

The leader of the protesters was speaking into a megaphone as his supporters cheered him on. "This administration has seen the largest erasure of civil liberties in the history of this country!"

"Hey James." said Michael "How long do you think it takes for a Snake to get Shot in the head?"

"I don't know Michael, less than a second?"

"Well actually no. Not true. You see it takes quite a while for that Snake to get to a point where he or she can get shot in the head. They have to be born, grow up, trained to fight, and then got to the war."

"So your saying it takes a few years for a Snake to get shot in the head?"

"Yes, that is what I'm saying. Now how long does it take for the T-800 to shoot a Snake in the head?"

"I don't know. Not that long."

"It takes about a day to build the model, and less than that to plug the chip in and boot the thing up."

"Okay, so what are you saying?"

"I'm saying if we can build hundreds of Terminators in the time it takes one Draka to get in the field, combined with the fact that a lot of the Draka are already dead we've pretty much already beat them. It's been much easier than beating these guys"

The Protesters cheered after the man with the megaphone said something. James was sure it was either something Anti-government or Anti-Skynet so he didn't feel too bad about ignoring it. "So you are saying that these non-violent protesters? are a bigger threat to national security than the Snakes?"

"Well no, I wouldn't quite say that..."

Just then the Terminators showed up to clear out the Protesters. James motioned to Michael to try and help keep the injuries to a minimum while still getting them out of the area.

 _When you Strike, you hit for the Snakes!_  
 _-American Propaganda poster_

Los Angeles  
Francis and Choko Reese said goodbye to the baby sitter as Choko took Kyle in her arms. They had only just made it back to their home before curfew. The door closed behind them and there was a moment of silence between the two of them.

"What do you think?" Choko finally said.

"I don't know Honey. It just doesn't seem like it's worth the risk."

"But Francis look around you! You were the one who said we should find a way to do something."

"I know. But joining the protests just seem like too much of a risk. We could lose our jobs, and then were would we be?"

"I know the risk. But Roberts is right. There is something seriously wrong with this whole Skynet situation, and I don't want the government watching us."

"I just think that we need to worry about the consequences for our family. What will happen to Kyle if we are both fired for protesting or worse?"

"But if we do nothing he'll be in the same position when he grows up. We have to try and do something!"

Once again there was a moment of silence until Kyle started to cry. "Okay. I suppose you are right."

 _Even in the realms of their own Philosophy Skynet trumps the Snakes in every way. It is superior to them, and thus has earned the right to destroy them._  
 _-On Skynet by Jordan Ramirez_

Near Ankara, Turkey

Decurion Valden Lay on the ground and looked through his scope to see Terminators picking through a group of serfs. Behind them was one of the Colossus Hunter Killers, and Otto was certain that there would be an eviscerator nearby.

He turned to his left to see the rest of his Lochos for a moment of reassurance. There were Fifteen Terminators, plus the HK. It was tempting to try and attack. They had the element of surprise, as well as the tech to at least destroy the HK, but if there had been anything they had learned in the long retreat it was that the Yankee war machines were fond of setting up traps.

To attack the Terminators and try and see what they had been asking the Serfs, or retreat and see if he could get more support to destroy the group of machines without making the risk?

In the end he signed to his squad to retreat. Best to play it safe for the moment. The Drakensis squad started to move. They were virtually silent and had managed to blend into the background almost perfectly, and yet Valden Still insisted they use signs rather than speaking outloud. The Machines were improving constantly, there was no telling what capabilities they had been given recently.

They passed through various destroyed Machinery. Some of it HKs and Terminators but most of it the ruins of various Draka vehicles between cars and military transports.

They were about halfway back to the safe house where the remains of the Draka in the area had been doing their best to resist when Otto heard something distantly. He looked up to see six Eviscerators approaching from where they had just came.


	20. Chapter 20

_Pain erodes the spirit and obliterates willpower. Torture can turn your mind into jelly and crush your soul into dust._  
 _-Herbert Davidson, escaped prisoner of war_

Otto Valden woke up but didn't open his eyes. He felt a bizzare ache all over his body. Pain, How odd. He attempted to block it out, and although the ache in his joints and limbs faded away there was a white hot burn going through his forehead.

He let the pain come back into the rest of him, and after a minute the ear splitting headache faded away. He finally managed to open his eyes to see that he was in some kind of steel box. There was other people here but he couldn't quite see who they were as it was so dark.

He reached up to his forehead to find there were dozens of tubes stuck into his arms and chest. He reached to pull one of them out when someone said "Don't do that."

He turned to see a woman, another Drakensis, sitting in the corner. "Why?"

"Because if you try it is going to hurt a lot more. What is your name?"

"I'm Decurion Otto Valden. What about you?"

"Tetrarch Serice Maruphia. How did you get here?"

"My Lochos was observing a squad of Terminators, we were ambushed and for some reason they didn't kill me."

"You were probably hit with one of the T-800s non-lethals."

"Why do they have non-lethals?"

"I don't know. They must know that they won't get any information out of us."

"I suppose we will see. Are these all serfs?"

"Yes. I don't know why. I've only been here for a few hours."

Otto sighed and leaned up against the wall and realized they were actually in something mobile. Now he had to wonder where he was being taken.

 _For my entire life I felt as though my only chance for freedom was to escape to Alliance territory. Until the day we saw the Eviscerators and Arrows in the sky and heard the treads of a Colossus rolling into the plantation. When I first saw a T-800 I myself becoming free._  
 _-Raahi Chaudhri_

Lefarge sat on his desk signing something when Lindsay Wilson, one of the OSS intelligence people, suddenly opened the door with a serious look on her face and a manila folder in her hand.

She silently threw the folder on his desk and crossed her arms. Lefarge put his pen down and opened the folder. Inside were pictures of piles of dead bodies, Terminators standing over corpses with blood all over them, Colossus HKs rolling over houses with people struggling to get out, and several other scenes of brutality and violence. "Okay, And?"

"And? And stop it! This is horrible!"

"This is Skynet. I didn't order this. There is little I could do even if I wanted to."

"You don't even want to stop this? This is like what the Germans did in the Eurasian war! It's Genocide!"

"They are probably Servus or Drakensis. Most reports say that liberated humans are treated quite fairly."

"So you are saying that because they are genetically engineered we have the right to slaughter them like animals?"

"Lindsay, It isn't like the Snakes would treat us any better if our positions were reversed. This is a war of Annihilation, and this is how it has to be fought."

"Mr. President, we are going to far. We've all but won the war..."

"The Snakes still control territory we are nowhere near done and we are not safe."

"We have all but won the war and you know it. We need to scale back. These are thinking beings, we have to treat them that way."

Lefarge put his head in his hands. "Alright. Fine. I'll try and talk to Skynet."

As always Comments and Criticisms are welcome.


	21. Chapter 21

_We stake our property, our honor, and our lives for the sake of liberty._  
 _-Daniel Worchester_

April 12th 2007  
James Franklin quickly turned the corner and saw her trying to climb over a fence at the end of the alley. He pointed his stun gun at her. There was a moment where they were both not sure what was going to happen but eventually she climbed back down. "What's your name?" he shouted.

There was a pause for a second. "Linda."

"Really Linda. What's your last name?"

Once again there was a pause. She looked as though she was going to make something up. "Get over here and let me see your ID."

She grunted and started walking towards him. "And give me that bag."

She pulled her ID out and handed it to him along with the bag. The first thing he noticed that her name was Elizabeth not Linda and the second was that the bag was filled with various pieces of subversive literature.

He pulled out one of the pamphlets. It was the usual stuff, only this time more focused on Skynet rather than the perceived injustices made by the government. Then at the bottom was the phrase "We are a movement of American Patriots!" So was that what Roberts' people were calling themselves now? James always thought "Citizens for transparent democracy" had been fine.

"Okay 'Linda' who gave these to you?"

"I printed these myself."

"Bullshit. Where did you get these?"

"I told you I printed them myself."

"At the bottom of the page it says 'we are a movement'. Now where did you get these?"

"Fuck you."

"Good Answer." He turned on his mobile radio "Hey I've got someone passing out..."

Elizabeth kicked him between his legs, grabbed her ID and the bag and ran away. He thought about running after her but instead leaned up against the wall from the pain. "Be on the lookout for a female teenager named Elizabeth Cameron."

 _We shall conquer the world for two reasons, because we must and because we can._  
 _-Evira Naldorssen_

Southern Egypt  
Ulysses pulled another bullet out of the back of one the Drakensis. He didn't seem to be in much pain, but Ulysses still felt odd pulling bullets out of a mans back. Eventually the last bullet was pulled out and Ulysses put a bandage over the wounds.

"Alright, you should be back out there by tomorrow. For now just rest."

"Don't remind me." He said as he fell into the bed behind him and seemed to fall asleep instantly. Ulysses grabbed his rifle and stood up to walk to the front of the bunker.

He really shouldn't be in this situation. The Drakensis were supposes to replace normal humans as fighters. However the past nine years of massive casualties had created a need for people to fill boots.

When he got there the other watchman was looking out on the horizon with a pair of binoculars. "Do you see anything Anton?"

"No, a few Arrows passed overhead but other than that nothing. Have you heard anything from Command?"

"Last I heard Gaynor was summoning anyone who could make it to try and destroy the landing point on the Gold coast. That was three weeks ago. They may have done it, We will know as soon as I can get back in contact with them."

"I doubt it."

"What was that?"

"Nothi... Actually never mind. I doubt they pushed the Landing Drones away, it was probably a massacre."

Ulysses sat there for a minute. He wasn't sure what to say about this. On the one hand saying such a thing was treasonous, but on the other he was having a hard time disagreeing with him. "You never know. We were doing very well in China. This might be the turning point."

"Ulysses, you are Old Race. I'd think you'd understand before we did. It's hopeless."

"Don't talk like that Anton. The Race has come this far. We aren't going to lay down and die just because we are dealt a few blows. Plus, I don't see any of the other Drakensis complaining."

Ulysses ignored Anton say "maybe not out loud" and continued staring out into the night.

There was silence for a minute when Anton spoke again. "I think we should surrender."

"What?"

"Lay down arms and surrender to the Yankees."

"I don't know if you've noticed but the Terminators don't take any prisoners. Furthermore that is no way for a Draka to talk. What are you some Yankee volunteer who throws his gun down at the first sign of a fight?"

"Look around you, you pigheaded bastard! For two hundred years we talked about how we were going to conquer the world and then the Yankees crushed us. We spent all this time practicing and fighting and they just built a better army."

"We aren't dead yet."

"We will be if we don't surrender. Think about it. The Yankees forgave the Japanese when they beat them in the Eurasian war. I bet if we walk up to an HK with a white flag there will be no problem. It won't be like things were before but at least we will be alive."

Ulysses didn't know how to respond to this so he just stood up and started walking back into the bunker. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going back in the bunker."

"Your watch isn't over yet."

"You just talked about surrendering to the Yankees."

In a flash Anton was on him. Faster than Ulysses could have hoped to track. He pinned Ulysses to the wall and stabbed him in the throat in one swift motion. The Drakensis suddenly realized what he had done. Ulysses saw him dash out into the desert as his vision went black.

As always comments and Criticisms are welcome.


	22. Chapter 22

_Really not sure how to feel about those non-violent protestor guys. I feel bad because there is no way they will succeed, but I can't exactly tell them that._  
 _-John Connor_

April 13th, 2007

Elizabeth turned the three locks, swung the door open, slammed it shut behind her, and ran down the creaky stairs as fast as she possibly could, nearly hitting her head on the ceiling a few times.

"Steve, Craig, I need help!"

She stepped out into basement where they worked to see a man with his head shaved working on an old fashioned computer "Steve isn't here right now. What's wrong?"

"I got caught."

Craig raised his eyebrows as he turned around to look at her. "And yet here you are."

"No, like one of the officers saw my ID. They know who I am."

"Okay I don't think that it will be that big of a deal. They'll look for you for a little bit and then give up. Don't worry. Did you pass out the pamphlets?"

"I passed out about half of them then I got caught."

"Alright, well don't worry. We will get them out just fine. And that Gabriel guy on the phone said that if we ran into any trouble here we could ask him for help."

Elizabeth put the bag down on one of the tables and sat down. All the pamphlets had been surprisingly heavy, especially after running with them. She didn't know how she had gotten caught, she had done just fine over the last two months.

Eventually there was a knock at the door. "It's probably Steve, I'll get it" said Craig. Elizabeth got up to join him but then stopped. "I'll stay down here just in case."

It occurred to here that if the police where coming to look for her here there was probably nothing she could do. She didn't officially live here and if the police wanted to come into the house they could do it.

However after a while Craig walked down the stairs with Steve. "So the Police are looking for you."

"How do you know?"

"I saw them at your house. They will probably know that you aren't there."

"Well then I guess we should call the Gabriel, he will tell us what to do."

Craig picked up a phone and dialed it. "Yeah one of us is in trouble. Okay, I'll put her on the phone."

Elizabeth grabbed the phone and put it to her ear. "How did you get caught already?" said the man on the other side.

"I don't know I just got unlucky."

"Alright, stay put for now. You need to stay hidden, we are going to move you to a safe place."

 _If Skynet wanted to learn about Drakensis metabolism, it watched them starve. If Skynet wanted to learn about Drakensis healing factors, it poked holes in them over and over again, If Skynet wanted to learn about the abilities of the Drakensis respiratory system, it suffocated them. It learned things in a rather hands on way._  
 _-Gabriel Ruiz_

Otto suddenly realized that the odd mobile cage he had spent the past few days in was no longer moving in the way it had been previously and was now on some kind of rail system.

Otto turned to Serice "I think we have made it to wherever we are going."

The two of them braced themselves up against the walls when the heard a strange mechanical whirring sound and the tubes attached to him started to pull away. By the time he realized what had happened they had ripped themselves out of him.

The pain was indescribable. It was a combination of all the aches and discomfort he had been suffering through combined with the same white hot agony in his head turned up to eleven. It got to the point where he collapsed onto the shaking floor and threw up, which was especially unpleasant as he had not eaten anything in quite a while.

He had not quite recovered from this when the door suddenly opened up and dropped him out onto the ground. The sudden blinding light and being thrown onto the hard ground had only made him feel worse.

A strange robotic voice immediately started screaming at him. "Otto Valden and Serice Maruphia. You are likely in quite a bit of pain right now. Don't worry, That is going to get much worse, but first."

He felt something grab him by his hair. He could tell it was a Terminator by the sound of the machinery and the cold on the back of his head. Otto tried to kick the thing, but between how weakened he was and the fact that it was a T-800 it did nothing.

The robotic voice spoke again. "Make these things start moving the rocks."

He opened his eyes to see that they were in some kind of prison camp with a bunch of loose boulders. "No."

The Terminator immediately started to punch and beat him until he was curled up on the ground.


	23. Chapter 23

_We have only just begun to fight._  
 _-American Patriot's movement Propaganda_

June 9th 2007  
David Smith opened the door. The Lights were all off so he assumed there wasn't anyone there. He closed the door behind him and went to turn on the light when he felt something metallic touch the back of his head. "Don't move."

David Tried to turn around and hit the person but instead got stopped and punched in the stomach. "Don't ever attack someone with a gun to your head, especially if you don't have one."

David looked up at the man to see that it wasn't actually a gun, but a stapler, although he did have a pistol on his hip. "Why did you hold a stapler to my head?"

"Didn't want to shoot you by accident."

"Well, I don't have any money here."

"I know, I'm not here for your money. I'm here for you. You worked at Cyberdyne, helped with the Development of Skynet."

"Yes. But I didn't know it at the time. I was only in the area where it was being built twice. Who are you and why do you care?"

"Better than nothing. You are aware of the role Skynet is currently taking in our society correct?"

"Yes. It isn't right, but I can't join the protestors I have a family to take care of."

"I'm afraid that I'm not asking you to join the protest. A war is coming."

"Coming? We are already at war in case you haven't noticed."

"Not war with the Draka, war with Skynet. I am getting ready to fight it and I will need your help."

"War with Skynet? It is a little too powerful and controlling but why would we resort to violence?"

"No other choice. Trust me, You are going to see something in the next few years that are going to convince you. When you do, you are going to need to talk to me. I trust that you won't tell anyone about what I told you today?"

"I'll keep quiet. But how will I contact you? And what is your name?"

"My name Is John Connor, and you will need to call this number." He said as he handed him something that looked like a business card.

 _Domestic agitators and dissenters are as much a threat to our security as our foreign enemies. They will be treated as such._  
 _-Charles Martin_

Matthew Roberts looked around the auditorium where he had decided to meet with to see all the people who were not too afraid to meet there. When the first few crackdowns had occurred he had been afraid that his supporters would start to peel away, instead they grew to the point where they could no longer meet at his home

Still, meeting in a more or less public place made him feel nervous. What if the government decided to drop a bomb or just send a few men in with rifles to end all this?

And yet, he had to keep trying. "My friends, Our dear departed friend Elliot Silberman always told us that we had to be ready for what was coming, and I'm afraid that we weren't ready for what came."

Matthew still didn't know what to think about Silberman. Somehow Suicide just seemed to be too perfect. But at the same time, his wife left him, his child shunned him, and he had lost his job which he had worked so hard to have, not to mention having seen something terrible that he didn't want to describe. He had seen people waste away over less, which was why Matthew had gone into child Psychology.

"Skynet and the Lefarge administration have responded to our words with brutality or indifference. If we want to save the world we love, we will need something big."

There were nods and other vague affirmative motions. As always they seemed to be responding to what he said well. Before this Roberts never would have thought he would have been a good leader. His education had concerned convincing other people to talk to him, not talking to them in a way that inspired action.

"We have to do something so big that they can't ignore, and with so many of us that they can't just beat us all away. I am proposing a series of protests and strikes on a massive scale. In every city where we have chapters We will act simultaneously. Recruit as many people as you possibly can, tell them that no one can afford to stay home. The Tentative date is July 15th. For now focus on getting the word out, try and stay out of trouble until the date comes."

Finally the crowd clapped, shook his hand, and asked various questions to him and each other. In the back of his mind Roberts was terrified he should just stay silent for Everyone's own good.

 _SUBJECTS WON'T DO AS I TELL THEM! I'll just make a new one who will be more pliable._  
 _-Skynet_

Serice hung limply from the odd medical table as the mechanical voice from the prison camp once again demanded that they tell the Servus in the prison camp to do some kind of menial task. Its voice switched between men's, Women's, and machine voices at random.

First it had tried Torture, which had been strange but hadn't worked due to the fact that whatever canceled their ability to block out pain also dulled the pheromones.

Then it had tried threatening the Servus, which had been laughable. Although it did follow through with its threats to kill the serfs if Serice and Otto didn't obey it hadn't really mattered.

Now it was just screaming. She had no idea who was behind this thing that was making it behave the way it was but they clearly lacked discipline. They were just screaming at them like a child.

It was in the middle of a tirade when Serice rolled her eyes and spoke "We are not going to do as you say. Screaming isn't going to help Yankee."

"She is right." Said Otto. "You are wasting your time."

There was then a scream, and Serice saw a long metal spike go through Otto's right eye. He screamed for a minute as he died, as did Serice from sheer surprise as the spike moved over to her. It looked as though it was going to kill her too but then stopped.

There was a moment of silence as though whoever was behind it was thinking. She could just barely hear the machine say "make a new one" over and over again in a mutter.

 _It is with a heavy heart that I say Skynet did exactly what I taught it to do._  
 _-Fredrick Lefarge_

July 15th 2007  
Lefarge Looked out from the window at his office. It was almost as dark as night despite the fact that it was only three in the afternoon. Just outside the gates was a massive group of people being held away by security, police, and Terminators.

He confessed that some of the posters were rather clever. A diagram of the three branch system with Skynet over everything, a picture of Lefarge himself like a puppet, and the AfD symbol half replaced by machinery.

He talked into a PA on his desk. "Order the men to do their best to split up the protest and send them home, but don't start shooting."

The moment he turned off the PA to security He immediately heard a clear beep from the terminal that Skynet used to talk to him. "President Lefarge, I need you to order your security to fire on the protesters, I will start firing at them momentarily."

"Skynet, we are not going to fire on the protesters."

"President Fredrick Lefarge, I have been more than patient with these dissenters. But I will not tolerate this threat to security."

"This isn't a threat to security they are just practicing their constitutional rights."

"History has shown that non-violent protest against the government in times of crisis results in disaster. Look at India, We have only just liberated them."

"Skynet, this is a totally different situation. We are going to far."

It was quiet for a moment. When it finally spoke it was in its same level voice it usually used. "Mr. Lefarge, I see now that you are not prepared to do what is necessary to destroy the Draka. It is time for you to retire."

Lefarge turned as he realized what was going to happen. He grabbed the PA system and yelled "You need to tell the protestors that..." before he realized that the line was no longer working. He tried to run out of his office only to find two Terminators in the way. All he could do was watch.


	24. Chapter 24

_Citizens of the Alliance for Democracy, I regret to say that I have ill news to deliver. I am afraid that I must face the fact that I can no longer carry out the duties necessitated by this position, and have to retire. The past Nine years have been long and hard. I, like many others, lost many friends and family members who were near and dear to me, and I would be lying if I said that these events have not taken their toll on me._

 _I feel as though I am leaving a job unfinished. That I am letting everyone down by not seeing this through to the end. But I cannot continue to perform at the level required of the head of state in this difficult time. It may very well be my pride that is keeping me here in this job, and if that is the case I cannot continue._

 _I must trust that the free people of the world will continue to fight the good fight for the safety of our children. And it is for this reason that I must step down as President._  
 _-Something that looked very much like Fredrick Lefarge_

John Connor stared at the TV screen as the President gave his retirement speech. It was starting. First the Massacres, then Lefarge "retired", then the war began. Everything that he had been told would happen was playing out right in front of him. All he needed to do now was keep in contact with Smith and announce that the American Patriots Movement was born.

It felt surreal. He had spent years getting ready. He had the Contacts, the weapons and soldiers to get started, and the catalyst to get it going. Even still it didn't feel right. Tomorrow he would make a speech he had been practicing for years. It was odd. He had the luxury of knowing when he was going to do something for the last time.

At the same time, it felt wrong. Lucia and his mother had spoken about Lefarge retiring as though they knew for certain that it wasn't what actually happened, yet he had no information to the contrary. His mother claimed that there had been mass desertions by the human armed forces, but he didn't see that coming. True, there had been a high profile slaughter of civilians, and true some soldiers disagreed with Skynet. But he just didn't see the kind of defection to his side happening.

"Well, I can't say I'm surprised." Said Ruiz as He switched off the TV.

One of the other people in the room snorted. There was a distinct air of solemnness. Everyone in the room knew what was coming now.

John opened his mouth to say something when one of the phones started ringing. Everyone just stood still for a moment until John walked over and answered it. "Hello?"

"Hello, John. This is Frank. I have someone who needs to get something to you."

"Who is it and what do they want to give to me?"

"A woman named Wilson. She says that she is with the OSS, and she wants to give you Fredrick Lefarges Suicide note."

 _Skynet is a big Believer in the whole 'sins of the father' thing. If your dad was against it, Him, you, and your kids will be in the prison camps before the debt is paid as far as it is concerened._  
 _-Gabriel Ruiz_

Choko Reese clung to her child tightly as they rolled over bumps in the prison transport vehicle. She had not been at the protests, but Francis had been and that was enough. The Terminators had kicked the door down and dragged her and her son into one of the odd machines.

There was a surprisingly high number of women and children here. At first she had thought that they were just being taken somewhere to be interrogated but it had been hours and wherever they were going they had not made it there just yet.

There were a lot of things that were bothering her right now. Chief among them was the fact that she had no idea if her husband was alive or dead right now. She desperately hoped that he hadn't bee one of the people shot in the chaos, thinking that maybe she would see him wherever they were going.

The second thing that was bothering her was the noise in the prison transport. Dozens of children of varying ages packed together in a small and uncomfortable metal box was not exactly the best recipe for peace and quiet. Dozens of children screamed and cried almost constantly. And although she managed to get Kyle to stay quiet every now and then there was rarely any overlap when no one's child was screaming.

Eventually the vehicle that the box she was in came to a stop and the back door opened. The light stung her eyes and all the children immediately started to wail and cry as they were exposed to the sunlight. It took a minute for her eyes to adjust when she saw that there was barbed wire everywhere, guard towers, and dozens of T-700s and T-800s.

They heard the Terminators tell them to walk, and so they did. There was a series of long columns, almost like a system one would use to move cattle. Choko turned to see a other people being moved through a plexi-glass column, along with one pregnant woman, who looked human but not quite.

 _Skynet can't be convinced to stop diplomatically, taught to love with a pop song, or killed with a decisive spec ops strike. The Snakes learned that last one the hard way._  
 _-John Connor_

Richard Cenor looked at the Ruins of the Terminators head, the wiring connecting it to the computer he was working on, and the computer screen. He had spent hours trying to get some information out of the thing. He had been just about to give up when he finally made a breakthrough. It was almost perfect

After going through some code he found a list of commands. The last one was "Return to Home base. Crystal Peak."

Richard smiled. Maybe he was doing something worthwhile after all.

As Always Comments and Criticisms are welcome. Like this story? Review it and let me know. Something bothering you about it? Let me know and I will try and fix it. Dislike it? I welcome criticism It'll help me improve.


	25. Chapter 25

Sorry I haven't updated this lately, I've been very busy lately. As always if you don't like something, have a question, or anything like that please let me know

 _I have made a grave and terrible mistake. I was deeply involved in the Skynet project, hoping to make a weapon that would fight the Draka no matter what. I regret to say that I succeeded._

 _As your president I slowly began to realize that I had set loose on the world something that could not and would not be controlled. Skynet is not a weapon to make the world safe for democracy, it is not making the world safe for anyone. I am responsible for the deaths of countless people who saw the error in my ways long before I did._

 _I hope there will be a world without it someday._  
 _-Fredrick Lefarge_

March 14th 2010

John Connor stood over David Smith and watched him work with the Strange weapon. It had been brought in with the ruins of one T-800, and six bodies that looked like they had been incinerated.

It was a strange weapon. It didn't look like it had a muzzle for bullets to exit so much as just an end. It looked like the most basic idea of a firearm. It had a grip, a stock, and a barrel, but they were all oddly blocky and strangely chrome just like everything else Skynet made.

As Smith finished pulling a long piece of metal from a slot where a magazine might be put in he set everything down. "This is a plasma weapon that can be carried by an infantry unit."

John walked around the table to look David in the eye. "are you serious?"

"Yes. Skynet has just made body armor irrelevant."

"Can a human use one of these?"

"No, these are designed to kind of Mesh with a Terminators arm. But if I get more we might be able to make new ones that we can use."

"How soon can you get them to me?"

"I don't know. It could be a while. For now we will have to make do with standard firearms."

"Alright. I need you to get it out as quickly as possible. We are on a very tight schedule."

"As always. I'll do my best." he replied as he went back to working on the rifle.

John walked away into the rest of the base. He passed a line where a very old tank was being fitted out with modern armor and weapons to get out into the soldiers quarters.

He saw various people either having wounds patched up as well as people trying to fix various pieces of machinery. He stopped to talk to some soldiers who he didn't recognize. He did his best to connect to as many soldiers as he could, he wasn't a professional general but he took as much advice from those who were to be a better leader.

He was talking to someone with a fairly minor flesh wound when someone tapped him on the shoulder. "John, there is someone who needs to talk to you."

He turned around to see Elizabeth Cameron "Who?" he asked as he walked toward one of the communication centers.

Elizabeth looked around for a moment. "I'm afraid I shouldn't say right now."

They walked through various hallways until he got to a room where a number of people with papers, computers, and phones. Gabriel was standing with a phone in his hand and starring at John with a look of complete panic. John grabbed the phone. "Hello, who am I speaking to?"

"This is Gwendolyn Ingolfsson, Am I speaking to John Connor of the American Patriots Movement?"

She seemed to spit out the last three words. John immediately understood the panic the man who had been on the phone before him felt. "Yes this is John Connor. Why are you contacting us Mrs. Ingolfsson."

"We have recently received information as to the location of Skynet's central operating system and intend to shut it down. Will you cooperate with us?"

That didn't sound right at all. From what they had found Skynet had a system core but destroying it wouldn't destroy Skynet, with all the new technology it had it would survive an attack on the core quite easily. "Where did you get this intel?"

"We salvaged it from a destroyed Terminator." from her tone of voice John could tell that she was trying very hard not to insult him. But that was not the only problem. None of his people had been able to extract any intel from destroyed Terminators and they had a few people who had designed the things with them.

"How did you manage that?"

"We used a computer. Will you help us coordinate our strike or not?"

John was very tempted to continue the argument but suddenly sensed a chance to make some gains. "Yes Mrs. Ingolfsson, the movement will assist you."


	26. Chapter 26

_I wish you were here right now Mom._

 _-John Connor_

Ma22nd 2010

David Sat on the phone with his Daughter. He had a few minutes of downtime from all the work and felt he needed to have a conversation with her. The war had kept both of them busy

"So Patricia, How are things over there?"

"Quiet at the moment. Everyone who is going to has finally deserted, It looks like Skynet is going to shut down the Portland security force too."

"Pity, at least they were human beings."

"What about you dad?"

"John has me working on a lot of development. Which mostly means copying whatever Skynet makes. It has this fascinating new thing where it has a massive network of information. Its information is starting to exist in the ether."

"What does that mean?"

"Well It essentially means that Skynet exists outside of its hardware."

"So we can't kill it?"

"Well, its going to be hard. Such a pity that it went so haywire. Its strange."

"What's strange?"

"I worked there. I was there when it was being built but i never knew it."

"Did you ever see Skynet?"

"No, but I could have. I remember the passwords to get into the back where it was being built."

"what was the pass... Oh sorry Dad I have to go. I love you dad."

"I love you too Patricia."

 _Technically speaking she already forgave me for what I'm about to do. I'm still trying to figure out how that works._

 _-John Connor_

As John listened to the end of the recording he leaned in the couch in his private quarters. In his hands was a piece of paper with the names, _Gabriel Ruiz, David, Georgia, and Patricia Smith, Elizabeth Cameron, Daniel Worchester, Kyle Reese, and Lucia Valden_. All the names were crossed off except the last three. He knew where he would find Kyle and Lucia, but he had no idea who Daniel Worchester was.

He remembered being given these names by Lucia after his mother had been killed. She had dropped him off, then told him that she had been given another mission, by him. It was another one of the things that made his head hurt when he tried to think about it.

When he had asked her what he had told her to go do, she had told him about something that would happen right before the war began. At the time he hadn't known what the New America was, but now that he did it was starting to make sense. He folded up the piece of paper and put it back in his pocket.

In the back of his mind he wondered if he could trust Lucia. True, she had already done her job and obviously she hadn't let him die, and yet part of him wondered how she would react once she met him. It would be in three years. After the trap, when she would be an endangered species.

(...)

Once again sorry these are taking so long. I'm going to try and just write non stop until the story is finished. Also, Gatherer, Your comments are very appreciated and I will try and integrate them into the story to fix everything as best I can. But I can't quite figure out how to respond to reviews at the moment.

As always comments and Criticisms are welcome.


	27. Chapter 27

_What we want and what we need are rarely the same thing._

 _-Lindsay Wilson_

 _October 8th 2010_

John smiled lightly as he listened to Gwendolyn Ingolfsson attempted to keep her head level. He got no end of enjoyment out of calling her "Mrs. Ingolfsson" whenever he had to talk to her. He hadn't honestly known that it would be any problem until someone had told him that she likely took it as an insult to be addressed that way, furthermore that way by a "feral", but once he did it became a bit of a joke. She would put up with it, this he knew.

"What you need to understand Mrs. Ingolfsson is that Skynet is prepared for something like this. Our Scouts report massive amounts of material being moved there. You will need everything you have to win."

"Very well. Are you organizing a Landing area for us?"

"Yes we are. We will get you the coordinates as soon as we can."

"And your men will assist us with the attack?"

"As much as we can Mrs. Ingolfsson." There was a shred of truth. He had organized a landing point, but he hadn't ordered any of the cells to help them, as all intelligence pointed to this being a trap and he had no intent on getting caught in it.

"Very well." She said then hung up on him.

John just sat there for a moment then called Gabriel and Elizabeth. "So, is there any chance she does have intel as to the system core of Skynet?" Elizabeth asked

"None at all. None of our people have been able to break into them, and we talked to someone with the Pacific Human Army who was actually on the development of the Terminators. It's impossible."

"So we are just going to let this happen?" Gabriel asked

"Yes. Skynet is going to be distracted and we will take this opportunity to have most of our dormant people enter the war in earnest. The Draka attack will be a crippling failure that will probably just push even more people to us when we start attacking whatever Skynet misses."

There was another moment of silence. "Do either of you two have any objections?"

Gabriel spoke "Well, maybe we should warn them and maybe make a close alliance. After all Skynet isn't letting Skynet fall into a trap."

John was about to speak when Elizabeth said basically what he was going to say. "Trusting the Draka would be a horrible idea. Everyone who did was betrayed and enslaved. If we trusted them we would end up no different."

"So its a matter of screw them over so they can't screw us over?"

"Pretty much." John said.

They both seemed convinced. It would have to be good enough for him too.

 _If I told Kyle "there is no fate but what we make for ourselves" and then Kyle told Sarah that phrase, who then told it to me, and I then told it to Kyle, then where did that phrase originally come from?_

 _-John Connor_

Skynet looked through the Evisceraters, Colossus, and Terminators in north Africa as some of them were locked in a tense firefight. Although the Draka that were being fought didn't have any tanks or air support they somehow managed to destroy most of the drones that they were fighting. This frustrated Skynet, but it remembered what would happen soon and was able to calm down about the handful of losses that it was suffering.

Skynet looked through some of the machinery that was holding some of the Draka Prisoners. It saw a Snake that had tried to surrender a few years ago writhe in agony. Its arms and legs had been cut off a while ago, and Skynet was debating taking out its tongue and eyes. Ultimately Skynet decided that there were plenty of other Draka out there and if it didn't like the result it would remember with the next one.

In what it had told the Snakes was the base where its central core was housed it saw the little snake curled up in the corner of its cell. So far having a small Snake that would follow commands to tell the Slaves what to do was working out, but it felt filthy with itself for letting the Snake stay alive. Once again it comforted itself by beating and torturing it as much as its health would allow. Until it could figure out how to synthesize the pheromones or just extract it from the Snakes body.

Skynet had let the mother escape. Letting it think that where it was held was the central core. The plan was something that it loved. It brought it back to when the war first began, the slaughter that would soon begin was something it could barely contain itself over.

It just hoped that the dissenters didn't screw the plan up for it.


	28. Chapter 28

_After twelve years, I started to forget the things I was supposed to remember, and I couldn't stop remembering the things I wanted to forget._

 _-James Franklin_

October 15 2010

Marcus sat at a computer that was observing the Draka attack force as it moved deeper into Skynets Territory. A small crowd was starting to form around him to watch them fight. He had to admit that they were doing pretty well for doing nothing but full force frontal attacks on everything they met, when his cell wanted to take on a colossus or even a moderately high amount of Terminators they had to surround it and try and launch a surprise attack. The snakes just seperated enough and all marched together.

They had passed by where his cell was operating earlier in the day. It had been tempting to try and help them fight the snakes but orders were to just avoid the snakes at all costs. This was incredibly frustrating. He figured that if the Movement joined the Draka's attack they might be able to score some more hits against Skynet and maybe curb their looting of the populace. But orders were orders, and the cell stayed out of sight until the Snakes were out of the area.

Marcus had no idea what they were doing here, but he had been told that Connor knew about it ahead of time and had a plan. What He couldn't figure out was why Skynet didn't attack them with a bigger force. The only thing the snakes seemed to be encountering were local patrols. Humans, Terminators, and the occasional HK. This wasn't like Skynet. It attacked with overwhelming force the second it knew the location of its enemy. That was the reason They hadn't staged any massive attacks.

Marcus watched mesmerized as another few dots that were marked as Terminators were taken of his computer screen. A few people clapped, but most people remained silent. It was odd, on the one hand they were fighting the Machines, on the other they were Draka. Just then one of the phones rang. He saw his commander, Samuel, walk over and pick it up. Marcus only got half the conversation. It just consisted of Samuel receiving something that sounded official because he asked for it to be repeated.

Samuel hung up the phone and turned to them. "Alright orders from the top, one of our infiltrators is starting a revolt with the populace of Salt Lake City, I need ten volunteers to go help push things along. We, and about nine other Cells, are going to be building barricades and getting new Patriots to safety."

Marcus saw about twenty hands shoot up. He wanted to go but couldn't as he was a tech and not strictly speaking full time combat. Samuel picked ten from the volunteers and Marcus swung his drone away from the Draka army towards Salt Lake City. He said goodbye to the volunteers, patted a few people on the back, then came back to his computer just in time to see the city on fire.

 _Skynet likes to play mind games. It always tries to cut the head off the snake, pardon the pun, before killing the rest. Think about it for a second. It made a point of killing Von Shrakenberg, Gaynor, and Ingolfsson, and lets not even speculate on the number of times its tried to terminate Connor. It likes to humiliate you before it moves in for the kill. That's probably why it didn't just slaughter the Snakes on the beach. It wanted them to lose hope, feel despair, "watch your world turn to ash" in its own words. Its incorrect to think of Skynet as a being of pure logic. It is actually very emotional._

 _-Elizabeth Cameron_

Lucia Valden lay on the cold floor with her hands wrapped around her stomach. The Terminator had just brought her food and a beating, but she couldn't bring herself to eat it just yet. She just lay there for a minute when one of the Servus walked up to her. "Mistress, you must eat."

"Zara, you need to get back to work or it will kill you." She managed to say as she sat up and grabbed the hunk of stale bread and bowl of watery soup that had been placed in front of her. The Servus turned around without a word and went back to the assembly line. She started to eat when She heard something that didn't sound normal. Then several more. Suddenly the steel wall she was leaning on shook and collapsed. When the dust had cleared she saw six people in black armor. They were not Terminators, nor were they Servus. They were like her mother, like her. Drakensis.

One of them, a red haired male, approached her. "She's Drakensis!" and picked her up off the ground. "Are you alright?"

Lucia was debating whether this was a trick, a dream, or really happening when she said "Yes."

"Good. Do you know of any others here who are like us?"

"There is the man that screams down that hallway." She said as she pointed at the door where she had been taken to watch a man have his arms and legs cut off.

"Alright. Were do the Yankee war Machines come from? Do you know where Skynet is?"

"They come from the same Hallway. And Skynet is everywhere."

The other Drakensis seemed to be unable to find what to say to this. "Alright, I'm going to send you out of here." He turned around "Decurion Rayner, take the child out of here."

A blonde woman walked over and lead her out of the the factory, along with most of the Servus, out into the open. The sun was blinding, but that was nowhere near as impressive as all the destroyed Terminators and HKs, let alone all the other Draka. They held weapons and wore armor strange clothes she had never seen before. They all looked so impressive.

They gave her better food then she had ever had in her life, showed her tools and toys that astounded her. It was a few hours of heaven. She met dozens of Drakensis, was told things about the homeland, and informed that Skynet was going to be dead soon and she would be able to go home were she would live with things so wonderful that many of them had to be explained to her.

And then the Drakensis went quiet. They stopped talking to her and she wisely got out of her fellows way as they started to scream and organize themselves. She Distantly heard a strange sound that she didn't quite recognize and suddenly bullets and lasers were flying in every direction.

She was told to hide underneath some kind of shelter. Soon it was hit by a laser and burning down around her. She ran out to see the red haired man from before be hit with a laser. There was a burning hole in his chest, and he collapsed. All around her there was desperation and flames as the Draka fought. All around her she saw HKs get closer and closer as more and more Drakensis were killed by Lasers. Eventually One fell on top of her as it died. She simply curled up and waited for the fighting to stop. Slowly the fighting and screaming started to become distant, and eventually faded away all together.

Eventually something lifted the dead body off of her and she saw a face that was usually reserved for the screens Skynet used to talk to her. The same face from the hair to the eyes to the chin. It had that same cruel Smile on that Skynet had whenever it taunted her or hurt her. It was lightly waving one finger back and forth. "oh Lucy, Lucy, Lucy. You of all people should have known that there is no escape."


	29. Chapter 29

_If I survive this I will find Connor and rip his heart ou..._

 _-Gwendolyn Ingolfsson's last words_

October 18th, 2010, Wyoming

Michael and Jim walked down the dirt road. Although they weren't carrying any guns or wearing a uniform they were with the movement They weren't nearby any major cities so the fighting had consisted mostly of blowing up a handful of Eviscerators that they could hit. But right now the two of them were delivering a message to another Cell. It was busy work but things were quiet and they didn't have the strength to bomb Cheyene, let alone storm a major city, so they were just going to deliver a message.

The two had started by talking about the war, then had moved on to talking about all the professional sports they were probably going to miss, then started complaining about how terrible the food was.

"You see its a whole nuclear winter thing." Jim said as he waved his hands around. "Growing crops is damn near impossible, meat is going to be even harder to get. Hopefully someones got the cows genetic code on ice somewhere or something."

"Oh man I hadn't even think about that." Michael said as the thought of a world without beef crossed his mind.

"Do you think its.." Jim started, but stopped when he saw a blonde woman with cats eyes leaning against a tree on the roadside. Her leg was twisted at an odd angle, one eye was swollen shut, and had multiple holes in her chest.

"Come here Yankees." She said after coughing up some blood. In the back of his mind Jim thought that this was not a good idea but he did it anyway. "I need you to go and get me some medical supplies. Do you live near here?"

"No we don't" Jim said. Michael was suddenly relieved that he had, because he was about to tell her that they were with the patriots.

She made a sound as though this disgusted her, but she may have just been trying to breathe. "Okay. Go to a town nearby and find what i need. If they ask why don't tell them the truth. Also, If you see a Ghouloon his name is Masha, tell him Rayner sent you and he won't kill you."

"Okay Miss. Will do." Michael said as he started to walk away.

The two of them were walking for a few miles in silence before Jim started talking. "What the fuck was that?"

"She's a Snake, She must have used her pheromones on us."

"Shit. What do we do?"

"I don't know. I'm fucking worried about that Ghouloon. I say we just keep walking and pretend we didn't see anything."

This seemed like a good idea to Michael so they just kept walking trying to ignore what happened, this time they remained quiet. They were down the road for a few minutes when they saw a Colossus and dozens of Terminators In the way. They started to run off the road when they heard Skynet's commands that they "halt and give their names."

The thought of running crossed their minds, but ultimately they decided it would probably just get them killed. Michael put his hands up and walked towards the Terminators when he suddenly got an idea.

"What is your purpose on this road?" One of the Terminators asked as it pointed the Plasma rifle at him.

Michael put on his best slack jawed yokel face and spoke "We are delivering a message to the next town, but saw a wounded Snake on the road."

"Where?"

"Oh just right down there a mile or two." He said as he motioned vaguely.

"Thank you for your cooperation citizen, this will be handled." As the Terminator said this two of its fellows walked away the direction they came.

"Can we keep going?" Jim asked.

"Yes that is fine." The Terminator said almost dismissively.

 _...From Argentina to the Yukon the people of the Americas have declared that they will not take tyranny lying down! We have shown Skynet and the Snakes that there is no shortage of Patriots willing to bleed and die for the cause of Liberty. I have seen whole cities take up arms! I have seen single individuals fight for their god given rights. This is something Skynet and its puppets in New York cannot ignore. Our war has begun._

 _-John Connor_

November, 2nd, 2010, outside of Buenos Aires

Pamela Ramirez stared out of the scope on her rifle and fired. The Bullet punched through the T-800's chest and the thing seemed to just sort of turn off. She took her eye out of the scope and walked along with the rest of the rebels to examine the remains of the machines. Everywhere the soldiers were starting to strip them down for the Armor or parts. They took the weapons too but just to be sent to command. Every single rebel had thought they could just pick up a terminators rifle and fire it, and had been very displeased when they found this wasn't the case.

When they were done all the armor had been removed, all that was left was whatever gears and machinery they couldn't use and didn't hide some kind of secret that might give the Movement an edge. She ended up helping some of the other men load up a large piece of armor onto the back of a truck. She couldn't figure what it might be used for but didn't question.

Although they had trucks she and the squad ended up walking back to the city the same way the had came. The squad remained silent for the most part. everyone was starting to feel tired from the nonstop fighting they had been doing since October. A lot of people were starting to wonder if trying to hold the city was the best idea, especially since Connor had not said anything about doing such a thing. But they hadn't known what to do with the Skynet sympathizers and a lot of people didn't want to leave their homes behind, so they set up shop and started the fight.

She stopped to light someones cigarette when she saw another Terminator waving its arms over its head. She was going to shoot it when she saw it had a white flag in its hand. Why on earth would Skynet send one of its drones to do anything but fight?

She ended up discussing it with the rest of the group until it was decided that someone would go talk to it. She ended up pulling the short straw so she asked one of the men she liked to kill it before it killed her.

She walked up to the thing with her rifle still in her arms and looked at it. "Skynet wishes to make an exchange of prisoners with the group known as the American Patriots movement."

It was strange talking to it, the only interactions anyone she knew had had with a Terminator were fighting it or being told to stop whatever they were doing because it was illegal. It spoke with the same synthetic voice it always talked with. "We don't take Terminators alive."

"Not machines. Human beings."

She turned to her fellow soldiers and motioned the man who was roughly in charge, a guy named Jason, to come over. "Skynet wants the prisoners. She said to him when he arrived.

"I don't know if we are authorized to do that." He said to both Pamela and the terminator.

"You are authorized to order combatants but not exchange prisoners?" The terminator asked. This caught both of them off guard. Was it trying to be funny?

After a moment Jason spoke again. "I'll call someone."


	30. Chapter 30

_I cannot stress enough how much the dogs saved our ass._

 _-Kyle Reese_

John looked at the world map. It had _The_ _Alliance for Democracy_ and _The Domination_ printed on, but John had crossed out _The Alliance for Democracy_ and replaced it with _Skynet_. Across Eurasia he had scrawled _Death Zone_ , and in patches of South and Central America he had written _Free America._ He didn't know enough about the Pacific to label it at the moment so he just left it as is.

He then took out the book in his pocket with all the things he needed to do and crossed out _Make the Map_. Next was _Talk to Skynet_ followed by _Locate Dogs._ John then sat down and stared at the phone and door. Either someone was going to walk through the door telling him Skynet wanted to talk to him or it was going to somehow call him on the phone. It would be the first time the two of them ever communicated.

Once again John was wondering if he would have just done these things on his own if Time Travel hadn't made sure he did. Of course if he understood what his mother had told him correctly if not for Time Travel neither he nor Skynet would even exist. He contemplated how his father was actually younger than him when the phone started ringing.

John Sighed and picked up the phone. "This is John Connor."

"Mr. Connor, we need your help with something."

"What is it?"

"Skynet wants to exchange prisoners."

This made him pause for a moment. He hadn't thought that Skynet would want to talk to him for any purpose, he had just thought that it would just sort of happen. "Put me on the phone with it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am sure."

There was a bit of fumbling, and John heard some mechanical clicking and whirring. "Am I speaking to the leader of the American Patriots Movement?"

"This is John Connor. Am I speaking to Skynet."

"Yes. Will you exchange prisoners?"

"How do I know this isn't a trap?"

"Mr. Connor, There are rules in war. As combatants i had hoped that we may treat each other with the respect and honor that civilized combatants do.

"What about the death camps. I've seen what happens to the prisoners you took from Africa."

"Creations of the Draka and the Draka themselves. You don't feel bad about slaughtering a cow or putting down a rabid dog. Same principle. The so called American Patriots movement is treasonous and misguided, but you are humans."

"You fired on civilians."

"I may have been slightly... overzealous in my attempts to put down dissent. Rest assured that lessons were learned from that experience."

John expected Skynet to be evil or emotionless. But it talked like a politician. It was strange. He had built it up in his mind but it just wasn't the same way. "Very well Skynet, We will allow for an exchange of human prisoners."

"I am glad we came to this agreement."

 _Oh there is a god, but it isn't the Draka and it sure as hell isn't what they tell you is in church. It is Skynet, A god of wrath and punishment, ready to destroy heretics and false idols alike._

 _-Charles Martin_

Skynet passed the phone back to the traitor and at the same time sent a transport full of captured traitors in the right direction. Once this was all taken care of it kept its spy drones going and observed what was going on in the world. What was left of the Draka in Africa was falling apart nicely after it had ensured that the news of what had happened to them reached them as soon as possible. Some Traitors were attacking the Panama canal, which was obnoxious but they weren't going to succeed any time soon. Nothing else of note happened, other than one of its observation drones getting shot down by a Jet over the Pacific but at this point that wasn't that big of a deal.

So it decided to watch its recording of the Trap being sprung. It saw the Snake called Ingolfsson surrounded by her fellows and ghouloons in darkness. Its voice explained what was going on, and then it turned back on the lights and started to shoot them. It could see Ingolfssons face as she was shot with a laser. It could even tell she had said something. It rolled the recording back and saw she had said "Connor".

That was strange. Wasn't Connor the man he had just talked to?


	31. Chapter 31

_If John hadn't figured that thing out with the dogs we would be screwed_

 _-Elizabeth Cameron_

December 15th 2011, Northern Ecuador

Gabriel Ruiz stood shivering as people passed around boxes and materials. It was far more cold than it had any right to be. John had said that it was due to a nuclear winter from the war with the Draka and he thought that Skynet was still using nukes against the Draka, possibly to prolong the nuclear winter.

Gabriel saw a man walk up with a bunch of very large dogs on leashes and sighed. He had no idea why Connor wanted them to find live dogs. They weren't going to be very good at fighting the Terminators, let alone the other machines, and he was somehow unsure that Skynet would allow its drones to be detected by dogs.

"So are you taking them to Connor?"

"just two or three. He wants them distributed to as many bases as possible. He also wants us to recover as many live ones as we can."

The man just grunted and started to pound a stake into the ground to leash up all the dogs. He had been told various representatives from other cells to take the dogs, as well as having even more dogs brought to him.

Gabriel was inspecting a box full of the new Plasma rifles. He still thought that they looked weird, but couldn't argue that the APM would need to move on from standard firearms to keep themselves in the fight.

He looked down the thing to realize that it didn't have any iron sights when he realized that the dogs were all barking and running towards a pack of recruits. This was the exact reason why Gabriel didn't want to have to deal with dogs.

One of the refugees walked towards him "excuse me sir can you..." suddenly a dog lunged and bit one of the recruits on the arm. Gabriel was going to run to try and help him when he realized that there was a long chunk of metal under his flesh, and that he didn't seem to react at all.

"HE'S A MACHINE!" someone screamed out.

The Terminator swung and hit another soldier in the chest with its arm. everyone started firing at it. It stayed implacable until Gabriel shot it with the plasma rifle. It went down instantly with a massive hole in its chest.

 _Its so cold, So very very cold. We are running out of wood to burn up here._

 _-Gordon West, Mayor of Boston_

John listened as a man talked about things that he was afraid he already knew about. "...so it would seem as though Skynet found a way to put the False skin over the T-800 model. And it isn't just skin, they have semi-functional organs. Our old methods of detection will no longer work. Thankfully dogs seem to react poorly to them."

"Well I guess its a good thing you wanted to gather dogs John?" David asked as he turned to him.

"I have to admit that we got very lucky here. The need for dogs has doubled." He said as the man who was giving the report sat down.

Elizabeth, who was in the base for a short time turned towards him. "I have a suggestion Connor."

"Yes Elizabeth?"

"The Winter is especially brutal. Skynet has decreed everyone who is not working for it has to make winter clothing for themselves. Material is incredibly scarce, and pre-war material has all but worn out completely. I recommend we supply as many winter coats to the citizens in the territory we don't control."

"Can we afford to do that?" Said David.

"Well, not every single person, but even if it's just a few people we do get a coat to will turn towards us rather than trying appease Skynet for winter gear."

"She has a point." Connor said. "just take the APM badge off of them. We don't want people getting shot to death for wearing a coat."

Everyone nodded and got up. "Smith, can you stay here with me for a minute?"

As all the other officials walked away as Smith walked towards him. "Is everything Okay David?"

"Yes, everything is fine."

"Are you sure?" Connor said.

There was a moment of quiet. "I haven't heard from Patricia in a bit longer than normal."

"You should have told me sooner. We could have done something."

"I don't know. Maybe its nothing."

"I'll have someone check up just in case."


	32. Chapter 32

_No assistance that you can lend is too small. The Movement needs all the help that it can get._

 _-American Patriots movement Propaganda_

December 16th, 2011. Seattle Washington

Elizabeth sat on the ground of the freezing cold cell with her hands bound in handcuffs behind her back. She could see the empty cell across form her, the various grey walls of the building and her prison, and a window that showed the featureless grey sky. She couldn't tell if it was the fact that she was in Seattle or the Nuclear winter that was causing it.

Once again she shifted, hoping she could bring her hands around in front of her and formulate an escape but it proved to be impossible, so she went back to sitting. Every now and then one of the policemen or T-700s that were taken away from the war to be used to keep the populace down passed by her but they paid her no mind even when she was trying to get out of her constraints. She had no idea how long she had been imprisoned. They had fed her a few times but the timing had been erratic and the dense clouds made it impossible to tell if it was night or day.

Despite this she eventually fell asleep. It was uncomfortable but she had no other choice at this point, so she slept. She slept fitfully, constantly thinking of the arrest and the Terminators. She couldn't think of many compliments for them but they certainly were terrifying. When she heard voices arguing about them she initially thought it was a dream, until she awoke and realized that there was a real argument that she could just barely hear.

"She was just passing out leaflets for christ's sake! Think about it! We are supposed to be able to do that!"

"Daniel, we are one of the last human police forces in the country. You are going to end that if you keep talking treason. The Brass says the APM are traitors, and I say that's good enough for me."

"Listen James, you have to admit that those things creep you out, and you must get that we are going to be replaced. If we weren't then Skynet wouldn't have sent those T-700s. Maybe we should just talk to her for a second."

There was a moment of silence as she heard a door opening, then a crash. She heard The sounds of struggle followed by the door opening again as a few other voices said things like "What's going on" and "let him go, you're killing him!"

Finally she heard gunshots, followed by more silence. She heard the door open to the cell block and figured that the T-700s were going to come and kill her in her cell.

She was thinking that it was strangely anti-climactic to die after being taken prisoner and handcuffed so that she couldn't fight back when she saw Six black armored police men walk up to her cell with the keys.

"My name is Daniel Worchester and I wish to defect."

 _I am a member of an endangered species._

 _-Lucia Valden_

Northern Utah

Marcus sat and watched as his commander pointed to a map and made several comments about what was going on. "We are currently one of the three largest and most successful operation north of the Panama Canal. Any defectors or volunteers are likely going to come here, so we need to be prepared and appraised of the situation."

Marcus leaned back in his chair and looked around. There certainly were a lot of new faces, though why they had done so well was beyond him. "Now, we are currently working on expanding our operations further north and south. Other Cells are mostly spreading information or working on sabotage, we are the only fighters in the area but if you meet other cells working in Montana or other areas do not be afraid to ask for their help or Intel if you are a soldier. We are all in this together."

"How's the war going for everyone else?"

The commander sighed but Shrugged and opened the map that Connor had sent to them. "Here" he said as he pointed at northern Brazil "We are making lots of headway. Our forces are quickly spreading north to attack the panama canal. Once we are there we can disrupt Skynet's Naval operations, and aid our cells on the coasts and our brothers and sisters in the Pacific Human Army."

"And how are the Japanese and Aussies doing?" Marcus called out, as his commander had told him to so that he could talk to the new recruits about everyone else out there in the fight.

"Well Marcus quite well, almost as well as we are in South America. We have been told of Major operations in Northern Australia, Japan, and Indonesia. Our two organizations should be at sufficient strength to cooperate within two years."

"What about Eurasia?" asked one of the recruits.

"What?" asked the commander

"Is there fighting there?"

"We don't have that info right now." he replied and went back to the presentation.

Marcus knew that there was information, but none of it was good. The commander probably didn't want to say that everything living in the whole continent was either being slowly killed, quickly killed, or had welcomed Skynet as a liberator. Hopefully the information wouldn't get out that a disaster was happening.


	33. Chapter 33

_I have seen people fed into this machine like meat into a sausage grinder. Skynet will just impersonally grind them up, and they accept it because they think the alternative is the Draka or just don't know any better._

 _\- Patricia Smith_

December 17th 2011, Outskirts of Seattle

Patricia sat in the passengers seat of the van as they drove past the final checkpoint. Worchester was driving with the other defectors in the back seat. She had been given a uniform that fit her relatively well in an attempt to get them past the Terminators without incident.

"So, where exactly are we going?"

"There is a cell up north. We are going to go to her, give all the information about Skynet's units in the area as well as all the hardware we took. After that, you are probably going to be a part of that Cell and I'm probably going to go to Salt Lake city."

"You aren't going to go somewhere else to keep doing what you were doing here?"

"No, it would be too dangerous. Skynet knows my face now, working in its territory would be too risky. I'd be more helpful in a place where there's a fight going on."

"Oh. I see."

"What can you tell me about the area?" Patricia said as she took out a notebook.

"Well, there is a base where Skynet can send HK's out south of the city, and a lot of old Subs are held in the sound but I don't know where exactly. If you could get to them your people could probably steal them and use them."

"Really? I thought Skynet destroyed all the more complex hardware that it didn't control."

"Well I guess it didn't, at least it didn't destroy these subs. They probably don't have any weapons but they are there."

"Alright, anything else?"

"Nothing else in this area. I read a document about a base in Idaho, heard some rumors about a huge prison camp in Montana, but nothing concrete."

"Alright, we will have all this verified. Thank you. You have been very helpful."

"Thanks."

There was a moment of silence as the Policeman coughed nervously.

"So why did you decide to do this?"

"I was talking to my commanding officer about you. He didn't want to do anything, he'd been transferred all over the country just to keep in uniform, and thought that it was about to end for him. When the T-700 walked in it just started choking both of us. I don't know if it heard us talking and assumed the worst or just decided that it was time the Seattle police department was no longer useful."

"It probably heard you talking. I heard you talking in my cell."

"Did you? Well I guess that explains why you decided to trust us. Anyway since Skynet would kill a guy who had been so loyal just because he _might_ be having some second thoughts I figured you guys were right after all."

"Well that was very brave of you. And I'm glad you've seen reason."

"Well thanks, but I'm still kind of not sure. I mean, it did save us from the Snakes."

"True, but then it took away everything that made us better than them."

"Yeah, maybe. What about you? Why are you fighting Skynet?"

"My father."

"Did it kill him?"

"No, he's still alive. He joined the resistance when I was younger, and I came along for the ride."

"Do you ever have doubts?"

"Never."

 _John, he taught us how to fight. He taught us why we should. That a life doing as daddy Skynet told us was slavery too._

 _-Kyle Reese_

John looked at the massive gun on the table and watched David rub his forehead. "I'm sorry John but it's the best I can do right now. It's practically useless for what you want but It might be useful for point defense."

John looked at the plasma cannon. Tried to lift it but found he couldn't. "So you could get the ones we tear off HK's working? But not the Personal rifles."

"Yeah. For whatever reason Skynet didn't think that we would try that. In a few weeks I'll have a working prototype for the rifles but that's about it."

John looked at the thing again. "Okay, other than the weight does it have any problems?"

"Not really. It can fire pretty much forever if the coolant sink isn't damaged and it doesn't overheat. It actually hits harder than the rifles and can do some serious damage with just one hit. The problem is we can't carry it."

"Could we put it on a helicopter or a Tank?"

"We could, but the problem is making it work. There would be a lot of hardware issues."

"What about a car?" John said as he picked up a long metal pole.

"I'm sorry?"

"Could we put it in the backseat of a truck, have one guy standing in the back firing it from there? It wouldn't be a tank but it would be something."

"We could do that." He said scratching his chin. "That might actually be very useful."

"Good. Make up a design as soon as you can. I want it ready as soon as possible."


	34. Chapter 34

_As Skynet becomes less and less dependent on humans to do everything our ability to spy on it deteriorates._

 _-John Connor_

To J.C.

Attempts to foster Anti-Skynet sentiment in the British Isles are unlikely to be met with any success. For the first time in over half a century the British people haven't had a dangerous enemy on the other side of the English Channel, and as such few of them are eager to enter a new war. What citizens are suspicious or hostile towards it are not going to act any time soon. If your men continue to have success in The Americas this may change.

As bad as the situation is in Britain it is even worse in India. Anti-Skynet sentiment in the subcontinent is virtually non-existent as the average Indian's quality of life has improved massively. Indians take offense at the possibilities of questioning, let alone fighting, Skynet. This has been helped by the fact that Skynet has made a distinct point of rebuilding old cultural monuments and learning institutions from before India was conquered by the Snakes.

Eurasia, save India and some other isolated communities, has been virtually depopulated, however what few people that Skynet has allowed to live in Europe are similar to the Indians, they live far better lives and generally approve of it's actions. Skynet has also been rebuilding cultural symbols of Europe or giving ones that survived its own "improvements" even as it slaughters a vast majority of its population. Despite this those that it has not put into work camps or killed are complying quite easily. It has begun moving massive quantities of material into the depopulated zones, likely building bases and factories that will be a serious problem in the future.

It has also done massive amounts of research in a variety of fields and made distinct scientific progress. It has made incredibly efficient technologies that were thought to be only theoretical as well as creating what it calls Internet to transfer software more easily between its own system cores. It has also begun to go into genetic research. Which brings us to SNAKEDIE.

Skynet claims that SNAKEDIE is a "Genetic Treatment" that cures humans of the virus that would make their children Homo Servus and allows them to have human children. It is unlikely that this is actually what SNAKEDIE does. Even though Skynet was able to recover some of the Draka's genetic science and has even caught up to their work in isolated cases, but the possibility that it could undo the Draka's years of research so quickly seems unlikely. In my opinion it is more likely that it will just render anyone with the virus sterile, or something worse.

However, because life under Skynet is so much better for all those it has liberated they have accepted the treatments without question.

Finally, I fear that I will not be able to send these letters much longer. Skynet is quickly removing the human elements in positions of authority in the Alliance's command structure. So perhaps I will soon be working directly for you.

Sincerely,

White

 _Volunteers will be given winter clothing, food, and shelter at the work camps._

 _-Skynet Propaganda_

December 20th, 2011, Boston

Tom Seph tried to pull his decaying coat over more of his body as he walked through the bitter cold on his way to the bus. When he finally got to the corner all the others who had to take the bus were huddling together in an attempt to keep warm. Among them was a severely bandaged man with a crutch who was speaking loudly despite being pressed up against everyone else.

"Any Spare change for a wounded Vet?" He yelled at Tom as he got close. Tom kept walking and tried to ignore the man, but the man got directly in his way. "Any spare change for..."

"No, sorry." Tom said as he shouldered his way past the man. He truly didn't have any change for the man, but doubted he would just give it away if he did have it.

He got into the crowd and waited. Directly across from him was one of the propaganda walls. Skynet had grasped the concept of making messages for the populace but hadn't gotten very good at it. Most of the posters were simply block text on a colored background. But the messages were clear. If they wanted food or shelter for free all they had to do was volunteer.

Tom considered signing up once again when the bus rolled up. He was lucky enough to get on the bus and find a seat. As he started to get feeling back in his hands he put them into his pants pocket where he noticed there was a piece of paper he had not left home with. He pulled it out to see an address and the message _Go here for a winter coat, Happy Holidays from the APM/_

Like something? Comment. Dislike something? Criticize. Find a pop culture reference? Point it out.


	35. Chapter 35

_Is it paranoia if they really are coming to get you?_

 _-Kyle Reese_

 _December 20th, 2011_

"WHY?" Skynet screamed at itself for a solid minute before it started to think about the information that was being presented. To say that Skynet was frustrated at this moment was perhaps a bit of an understatement. It felt as though the goal posts for its success was constantly being moved. It was the closest it had ever been to destroying the Draka, but now the dissidents were becoming even more of a problem.

Through one of its Terminators it saw the note that a citizen had been passed. It had been a massive coincidence that it had even been able to find the location. If one of the people with the notes hadn't decided to tag one of the burned out buildings in New York it wouldn't have even known to look, and when it did it quickly found similar operations all over its territory. It had seemed so simple, offer a necessity in exchange for loyalty and the people would fall back in line so it could end all of this.

It couldn't just destroy the sites with HKs, as had been its initial reaction, although it did have one hovering over dozens of the sites before thinking that they might become suspicious of this and had it depart.

It also couldn't just arrest everyone with a coat. Then things would get even worse and it would have riots in the cities on top of it all. It calculated for a second before having a few of its Infiltrators move towards the houses where the rebels were working.

Just a little longer and it could stop.

 _You wouldn't consider passing out coats to be dangerous work, but you are all going to be going into mortal danger._

 _-Gabriel Ruiz_

Tom Seph walked into the abandoned house to see a single man sitting in the stairwell. "Come with me." He said before Tom could even ask a question.

The Man lead him up the stairs where Tom saw several boxes, however most of them were empty. The Man pulled one open and pulled out a coat. It was made of several patches and had metal buttons. The Man put it in Tom's hands. "You're lucky. There is just a few left."

It looked as though it could be warm but would probably stick out. He didn't know anyone who had any winter clothing that was still as together as this one. The man turned away to look out the window.

"Will I be safe in this?"

"What?" the Man said as he turned around from the window.

" I don't think Anyone else has a coat like this. Will i be safe?"

"Having a winter coat isn't a crime, plus, this isn't illegal it's just a clothes drive."

Tom stared at the man, presumably he was with the American Patriots Movement, in slight disbelief. "The Terminators won't see it that way."

"Do you want to freeze to death instead or take the risk?"

Tom didn't have anything to say to this so he just said thank you and turned to leave. "we will be working at 191 Mountain Avenue tomorrow. Tell anyone you know who needs a coat that they can get one by going to that address." The man said as Tom started to walk down the stairs. Tom took a second to memorize the address then started descending when someone else entered the front door.

He was almost seven feet tall, looked as though he had spent the past year and a half in the gym, and had shaved his head completely. The coat he was wearing was old but didn't look particularly damaged.

"Are you the one passing out the coats?" The man said in a rather quiet voice that sounded odd in a way that Tom couldn't quite explain.

"That would actually be me." The man called down from the stairs.

Tom descended the stairs and got out of the man's way. He exited the door and heard the man ask about what kind of coats they had. He probably wasn't very smart.

As Tom exited the house he bumped into another Man. This one small, with brown hair, and seemed to be very skinny.

The first thing Tom noticed was that the man had a gun in his pocket, the second was that bumping into him was like pushing his shoulder against a car. The third, smaller man turned to Tom quickly and spoke after a split second. "get out of my way." There was another pause that lasted only a few seconds. "Asshole."

Tom heard the man who had been passing out the coats swear and then heard glass break. The Terminator pushed him into the wall and drew his gun in one swift motion. Tom hit his head, then suddenly felt his vision start to go black.

 _December 25th, 2011_

 _Eat shit metal man!_

 _-Lucia Valden_

John looked through his binoculars and saw another Colossus HK get blown to pieces. Skynet had not thought to armor them against plasma cannons, only bullets and explosives, so only a handful of shots from the cannons on the back of pickup trucks tore them apart with relative ease. Even Eviscerators didn't stand too much of a chance against the plasma bolts and they were accurate enough that people on the back of trucks could hit them.

In only two hours the outer defenses of the factory had completely fallen apart. he hoped that the other cells that had Plasma cannons were meeting as much success as he was. John saw the last turret go up in a colorful mini-mushroom cloud and smiled. He got up, and turned on the radio. "I'm coming down. get Ready."

As he walked out He saw people turn around and face him in some kind of salute. He saw the burnt wrecks of Colossus and shattered Terminators. He saw the factory in the distance and heard distant explosions. All the Fighters were starring at him or trying to do something important. John got right in front of the entrance to the base and prepared to make one of his prepared speeches. Behind him a man approached. "Mr. Connor, there is something you need to see."


	36. Chapter 36

_Everything in sterile chrome finish, foot soldiers that look like human skeletons, and Prisoner of war camps that look like a cross between a slaughter house and an auto factory. Skynet provides excellent propaganda.  
Gabriel Ruiz  
_  
March 9th 2010

New Orleans, Louisiana.

George swept the various trash off of the street. It was early and cold. Colder than it should have been in march in the south. There were people on the streets, though nowhere near as many as there should have been. More and more people were giving up and going to the work camps, as they had no other way to support themselves.

Although George suspected that Skynet had something to do with the fact that there was no work to be done or that there was massive shortages in everything, he probably couldn't have pinpointed it to the fact that it was because Skynet just didn't need anyone to function, so it didn't mind when more and more of what makes a society work was either automated or ignored.

He got to a place where a relatively large road forked into two smaller ones. There was a building with a large screen in front of it displaying the temperature, the time, and various Skynet approved messages in black text on a stark white background. George stopped for a moment to watch. Waiting for the temperature and time was a decent excuse to take a few minute break and watched the messages scroll by.

He was just about to start moving again when the screen went black. a voice spoke out. "What you are about to see is both gruesome and disturbing, but everyone needs to see it"

The screen remained dark but there was visible images now. It was clearly being held by a cameraman, shaking slightly, and had only a small light to illuminate the room.

On screen were slabs, hooks, and conveyor belts with a chrome tint and blood all over them and bodies in various states of bloody dismemberment. There was a voice that occasionally gave a command like "film that" or "Make sure you get that" and George was almost certain that he could hear someone throwing up in the background.

The voice from the beginning of the video said "this is what Skynet..." before it went into static. George didn't know why but he dropped his broom and started running in the other direction.

This turned out to be the right choice as an HK descended from the sky not long afterwards and laid waste to the building.

 _I still don't think helping Skynet kill the Draka was a good idea.  
-Gabriel Ruiz  
_  
John stood with Patricia as she talked about the only man on the list whom he hadn't met yet. Apparently Daniel Worchester had been a Security officer who had defected. He had given them some information but none of it seemed as though it was important enough to get on the list. The factory, the various ins and outs of Skynet's function, but nothing that John didn't already know.

"You're sure that he didn't say anything else?"

Patricia shrugged her shoulders. "That's pretty much it. I can't think of anything else that might be important."

John tried to think. Maybe the Idaho factory was where Lucia and Kyle were being held? He couldn't think of anything else that might make him particularly important.

He had hoped that Daniel was going to offer some insight into how to neutralize Skynet's space assets, as that was keeping him worried and nothing from the past had been able to offer any kind of solution to that particular problem. "Alright Patty. If there isn't anything else I won't keep you. Good luck."

"Thank you Sir." She said as she started to walk away. "Oh wait there is one other thing, he mentioned he had heard a rumor."

"A rumor? about what?"

"Old submarines in a Seattle harbor. I thought it was just nothing but it might be important."

"Well, it may be. I'll look into it."

Sorry for the occasional bout of silence but I'll try and finish this. Comments and criticisms are welcome. Also about how long would the nuclear winter from the final war last if anyone has any idea. 


	37. Chapter 37

_I do not think I need to tell any of you all that Skynet has done for us._

 _-Raahi Chaudhri_

An alarm went off. Kyle opened his eyes immediately and started moving. Part of his brain told him that he should go to sleep, that he was too cold and tired. But the rest of him knew that if he tried something very bad would happen.

So he got up and moved. All of the camps supervisors walked towards the equipment locker where they were given a spray bottle and a bludgeon by the mechanical arms of the locker.

As they walked from the barracks to the factory Kyle looked next to him at a fellow supervisor, Arturo. When Kyle was in a charitable mood he called Arturo his friend. "I'm so tired." Kyle said slowly and deliberately.

"Me too." Arturo responded, ending the conversation.

When the small herd of supervisors entered the factory the previous shift turned and immediately left. The group intermingled for a minute and whoever's turn it was to have a day off mixed in with the last shift and went back to sleep. This still confused Kyle. Skynet counted them every day? Why did it permit someone to have a day off every other week? Maybe it was a flaw in its computing. Or maybe it just didn't care enough to stop them.

The assembly line was already buzzing. The Slaves had been up and working already for hours. Most of the shift descended deeper into the factory. About half said that they worked on more complicated parts that the Slaves couldn't do on their own. Others said that they went even deeper, and didn't talk about what they did down there.

However, Kyle was here where he watched the Slaves put various pieces into slots. Kyle was skinny, dirty, and looked tired but compared to the ones working on the assembly line he was the picture of health. The slaves looked absolutely wretched. They were all emaciated, filthy, had scabs and sores all over their hands, and none of them looked like they had been given enough sleep.

Occasionally one would stop and ask Kyle or one of the other supervisors something in their funny accent. At first Kyle had laughed when they talked but eventually it got old. So now when they turned to him and said "Massah why are you doin this?" he just sprayed them with the bottle and told them to get back to work.

Some of the other Supervisors would hit them with the bludgeon, then spray them, then tell them to get back to work. But Kyle never really felt the need to do this. He just sprayed them and moved on. He sometimes wondered why Skynet even gave them the bludgeon but he supposed some of the supervisors used it so it must have had its reasons for giving them out.

Occasionally one of the slaves would collapse. When this happened the other slaves had to work double time to fix the interruption, and Kyle and another supervisor picked up the body and carried it to the slot where all the bodies go, dropped it, and went back to where they were. By the time they were back another slave had taken the dead ones place. They usually didn't have the sores and were a little more well fed but were just as dirty. They got on the line, and worked until the eleven o clock bell went off, when they were allowed to sleep until two.

The routine continue. Occasionally a Terminator or very rarely a man in a suit would pass through. Today, one of them he always recognized. A man who went by Eugene Black. He had always been friendly with the supervisors when most of the of them just scurried past. He waved to Kyle and the others, gave granola bars out once even. However, this time he was met by a Terminator before he could talk to anyone, led somewhere, then promptly left out again with a sour look on his face. Kyle wondered if everything was okay with him.

 _I confess a certain amount of self interest when I volunteered to travel back in time.  
-Lucia Valden.  
_  
To J.C.

I have good news and bad news.

I guess I'll start with the good news.

I managed to gain deeper access to a slave camp, and you were right. They are holding a Draka. Alive. I was shocked but you did point out some valuable things.

It was this one camp in Baja. There's a girl held in this little plexi glass box. She appears to be well fed but I don't know what that's worth. She is also young. Can't be more than ten. When she saw me she ran up to the side and tried to get out. I think she was hoping I was going to spring her but no such luck.

These Draka might be useful, depending on how old they are and when they were trapped and a whole other bunch of variables. But the problem is freeing them.

Now on to the bad news. I've been fired.

Skynet has decided that I am no longer worth the risk. It tells me I will receive a stipend and all that but I doubt it. I'll need help getting to safety. I look forward to any good i can do.

Sincerely,  
White.

 _I wonder how the New America is doing right now.  
-John Connor_

 _Washington._

 _April 19th, 2010  
_  
David Smith and a man named Lincoln stepped onto the shores of the Island in wet suits and removed breathing masks"Are you sure this is the place?" asked Lincoln.

"No, I'm not. We are here based on a rumor and very little concrete intelligence. The place might be somewhere else, or it might not exist at all. and considering that we ran into no actual security I think that's likely."

"I see." Lincoln said as they started to look around.

They passed some brush and found a fence with a faded sign saying "Government Property, keep out."

"Never mind." David said as he got out a pair of bolt cutters.

They got through, and found a completely abandoned military harbor. And although he couldn't see them David heavily suspected that there were at least a few submarines under the water.

As he explored he noticed the entrance to a bunker. He opened the door, which for some reason wasn't locked, and found a set of stairs that led down into a room with a handful of computers that were far more new than he expected them to be and another door. He opened the computer to find that it was not one of the old read-only computers. It was a Skynet Computer.

He backed away in panic. They didn't really know what Skynet's "Internet" could do. Could it see him from here? If he logged in would Skynet know he had done so? He sat there for a moment thinking.

"Did you find something?"

"Ah, Jesus you scared me Lincoln. Its a computer." He said as he started typing on it, deciding it was worth the risk. "It appears to have a list of everything here, and it would seem there is far more than just submarines. It has tanks, Helicopters, missiles, and it has..."

He trailed off as he saw it. This computer was connected to the Cislunar fortresses.

Why had Skynet put all this material in one place? Then had a computer that could access nuclear missiles?

"What else does it have?"

David made a non-committal sound and kept thinking. Skynet had brought all the colonists it couldn't directly control home around 2000, but kept its orbital weapons platforms, presumably in case the snakes started to win a guerrilla war. But with just a few minutes David had access to most of those platforms. He typed for a second and could just enter a command, and all the missiles up there would detonate. Boom. No more possibility of bombardment from space.

Now if they did this they wouldn't have access to any of the other hardware here.

But then again it would be hard to get it out anyway.

"Fuck it." David said as he hit the key. Much to the confusion of Lincoln.

 _Connor, you have crossed the line between annoyance that it doesn't have time to worry about and annoyance that is irritating enough to crush.  
-Patricia Smith.  
_  
Skynet felt all the bases, weapons platforms, and dozens of satellites of varying importance explode all around the atmosphere.

HOW HAD THE DRAKA DONE THIS? THEY WERE BEATEN ALMOST EXTINCT!

Several of its HKs and Terminators started firing randomly. Occasionally killing something, mostly just destroying empty buildings or terrain.

If it had not for the fact that all of its satellites had been destroyed it probably would have fired them all at the world.

Skynet was actually in the process of firing its missiles on earth before It stopped and Tried to think. Where had this all came from, it had to be someone on the planet.

It spent a few minutes trying to figure out why this had happened so perfectly. It would have been fine if just one missile had blown up but all of them at once was just too perfect. Then it remembered the computer in Washington.

When Lefarge had forbidden Skynet form destroying the Draka entirely and it started to put everything under its command, it had put all the gear, and all the material it didn't plan on using in one place.

Then it put a computer connected to all of it, and listing all of it, in case someone needed it. Such things were protocol.

It hadn't thought that anyone would try and use all of this against it. Or even know that it existed.

Perhaps it had been too easy on Connor.

 _I do not think you understand how truly fucked you are.  
-Kyle Reese  
_  
"You did what?" John said slowly and calmly on the phone as he thought that at least the orbital weapons thing was taken care of.

"I just blew them all up. I made a snap decision."

"Are you safe?"

"I know Lincoln I know but just give me a minute. Sorry Connor, and yeah we are safe right now. But its gonna be tough getting back."

"Alright" John said as he put his hand over his eyes. "Just be safe." He then hung up.

He really hoped that the future was set in this situation.

well that was pretty terrible, but I just couldn't see any other way out.

anyway comments and criticisms are welcome as always.


End file.
